Is it possible to apply Latex formatting in heatmaps?

I created a heatmap with function 'heatmap(xvalues,yvalues,cdata)'. It seems that latex expressions like '^', '_', etc. have not been interpreted in 'xvalues' and 'yvalues'. So I want to know how to display latex-format elements in the 'xvalues' and 'yvalues' position of heatmap? Or how to set xticklabels and yticklabels with latex format for heatmap?

Answer 1

[Shlok]

Hi Lyu,

The support for controlling text interpreter (including LaTeX) for displayed text using the “Interpreter” property is added from R2023b. You can upgrade to R2023b or a later version to use this feature. I have attached the link of release notes of R2023b for further context:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2023b/matlab/release-notes.html

You can set the “TickLabelInterpreter” property of heatmap to “latex” for the tick labels to show the LaTeX-formatted elements. Here’s a sample implementation for the same:

% Sample data  
xvalues = {'\alpha', '\beta', '\gamma', '\delta', '\epsilon'}; 
yvalues = {'\theta', '\lambda', '\mu', '\nu', '\omega'};  
cdata = rand(5);  
% Create heatmap  
h = heatmap(xvalues, yvalues, cdata);  
% Set the tick label interpreter to LaTeX  
h.NodeChildren(3).TickLabelInterpreter = 'latex'; 

This method will ensure that the labels in both the x-axis and y-axis display correctly formatted LaTeX symbols.

To know more about heatmaps, refer to the following MathWorks Documentation link:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/matlab.graphics.chart.heatmapchart-properties.html