Colour background for polar axes

I am trying to recreate a display (which has a black background) with a polar plot.

If I use polarplot I cannot add patch items to the display. If I use polar as an alternative I seem unable o display the axis with black (background) colour. Is it possible to do this ?

Answer 1

[Divyajyoti Nayak]

Hi @Rob L,

The background color of a polar axes can be changed by setting the 'Color' property of the 'polaraxes' object. Here's some sample code to demonstrate:

p = polaraxes;
p.Color = 'black';
p.GridColor = 'white';

Here's a link to the documentation for properties of the 'polaraxes' object.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2025a/matlab/ref/matlab.graphics.axis.polaraxes-properties.html#bu8f1sf-Color

Answer 2

[Adam Danz]

In MATLAB R2025a (and later), patch and surface objects are supported in polaraxes; so is dark theme.

R2025a

pax = polaraxes(); 
patch(pax, [0 60 150 240 360]*pi/180, [2 1 2 1 2],'c','FaceAlpha',0.6)
theme dark

% Don't use this next line - it's a workaround to display the figure
% properly in MATLAB Answers. 
set(gcf,'Color',pax.Color)

Prior to R2025a, using the not-recommended polar() function

figure()
pline = polar([0 60 150 240 360]*pi/180, [2 1 2 1 2]);
paxOld = ancestor(pline,'axes'); 
paxBackgroundPatch = findall(paxOld,'Type','patch');
paxBackgroundPatch.FaceColor = [.2 .2 .2]; 
[x,y] = pol2cart([0 60 150 240 360]*pi/180, [2 1 2 1 2]);
patch(x,y,'c','FaceAlpha', 0.6,'EdgeColor','w','EdgeAlpha',0.6)