Can't open .fig file saved by saveas command on script

Please help understanding why I can't open a file generated by save as command on a script.

I tried:

saveas(gcf,'Graph.fig')

and

savefig('Graph.fig')

The code generates a file like the attached one. The file, if double clicked, opens Matlab program but nothing is shown. I use similar code to generate .eps and .png files and they are fine.

If I manually do "Save as" it generates a similar sized file that opens fine.

Please bear in mind I have very limited skills with Matlab.

Any help appreciated.

[Mathijs Geurts]

Dear @Ricardo Almeida @Steeven,

I just started using Matlab and I am experiencing exactly the same problem. Have you managed to solve your problem in the end?

Or is there anyone else that understands what goes wrong and knows how to solve this poblem?

saveas(gcf,fullfile(figuresdir,'example fig figure1'),'fig');

saveas(gcf,fullfile(figuresdir,'example fig figure2'),'png');

Any help would be much appreciated.

Mathijs

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

fig = openfig('Graph.fig');
set(fig, 'Visible', 'on')

That is, the figure happened to be saved when it was set to invisible.

[Steeven]

This works, but can it also work without opening the figure on the screen at the same time? I simply wish to save the .fig file for later use.

[Jan]

@Steeven: If you save a figure with 'Visible' set to 'off', its 'Visible' property is set to 'off' when you load it also. If you want to have an enabled visibility directly after opening, simply enable the visibility before saving.

It is not clear to me, what your problem is.

[Walter Roberson]

I would not say that it is impossible to reach into the .fig and modify the visibility flag without loading the figure and having it go visible -- but I would say that the internal representations of graphics objects in .fig files are undocumented and tricky to get right.

.fig file are .mat files with certain special variable names, by the way. And for backwards compatibility, all of the information is stored twice, once in a HG1 compatible form, and once in a HG2 compatible form, except that if the figure was saved with the -compact option then the HG1 version is omitted. You would have to modify both copies of the information.

There is a java library designed to manipulate .mat files, https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/10759-jmatio-matlab-s-mat-file-i-o-in-java that you might be able to modify for this purpose.

[Steeven]

@Jan and @WalterRoberson, thank you both. @Jan, I would like to have the image (the plot) saved as a .fig file in a directory on my hardisk. And that's it. I do not want to have it opened up on the screen at the same time.

The reason is that I have many graphs being generated and I would like them all saved for later use. I would like them to NOT open all at once and spam my pc window. Just being saved, so I later can open one of them of my choice. I hope this is clear now?

[Walter Roberson]

We understand the request -- it is just not at all easy to implement. As soon as you change the visibility flag to make it visible, it is likely to render before you can save it (confirmed in my test.) Therefore in order to meet your requirement, you would have to save the figure with the visible flag off, and then have some code that modified the binary version of the .fig .

If you always want the figure to become visible as soon as it is opened, then I recommend a quite different approach:

Leave the figure 'visible' flag off at the time of your saving the figure, but first set the figure CreateFcn callback to @(src,event) set(src,'Visible','on')

[Stephen23]

"The reason is that I have many graphs being generated..."

Why not avoid the whole problem by using just one figure (or a few figures)? For reasons of simplicity (i.e. defining and accessing graphics handles) and efficiency this is what experienced users often do, simply updating and replacing any data/axes/... as required. You could easily save each iteration as its own .fig file.

"I would like them to NOT open all at once and spam my pc window"

Spamming lots of figures is something that beginners do before they learn how to use graphics handles and update their graphics instead of just generating more and more and more figures. There is no reason why you need to spam anything anywhere, even if plotting lots of things in a loop.

Create just one figure, obtain its figure handle explicitly, send it to the back of the graphics stack, and then keep on working. Always obtain and use all graphics handles explicitly.

All of these other suggestions might work, but they are hacks to fix something that would be better avoided by fixing the problem at the source, not by affixing a Band-Aid afterwards.

Answer 2

[reyadh Albarakat]

Hi Ricardo, Try this function export_fig

[Steeven]

Hi Reyadh. Would you mind explaining or giving an example of how to "install" and how to use this function? I do not seem to have success with it.