How to select active tile in tiledlayout

I want to create one figure with 16 plots arranged in a 2x8 shape. I use

tiledlayout(2,8)

to create the layout and then use the

nexttile

command followed by

plot(x,y)

to insert the plot in the next available tile. I repeat this process 16 times and i get my figure.

If now, for example, i want to go to the tile in the 2x3 postion and add a new plot while hold is activated, how do I do that? With the subplot command, i would have typed

subplot(2,8,11)

to go there and work on that plot. How can I do the same thing but with the tiledlayout command?

Answer 1

[KALYAN ACHARJYA]

"If now, for example, i want to go to the tile in the 2x3 postion and add a new plot while hold is activated, how do I do that? With the subplot command, i would have typed"

One way: e.g

data=1:100;
tiledlayout(2,2);
fig1=subplot(2,2,1),plot(data,log(data));
subplot(2,2,4),plot(data,log(data)+2);

% Let's go to the previous tile 2,1,1

axes(fig1)
hold on;
plot(data,log(data)+2);

[Francesco Burgalassi]

This solves my problem. Thank you.

However, if I use the subplot command instead of nexttile, the 'Padding' value in the tiledlayout command loses its effect (the figure has again a lot of free space around the plots, as if i was using subplot instead of tiledlayout from the beginning). How can i avoid it?

[Dave B]

This isn't a great approach - subplot and nexttile are totally separate layout tools. When you call subplot you're moving back to using subplot and the TiledChartLayout is gone.

Getting the axes from tiledlayout is very similar however, you just use the nexttile command:

tiledlayout(2,2)
for i = 1:4
    nexttile
    plot(rand(10,1))
end

% Add something to the third plot
nexttile(3);
hold on
plot(rand(10,1))

Answer 2

[Sven Merk]

This code updates tile 2x3 with a second plot, using only tiledlayout.

rows = 2;
columns = 8;
tiledlayout(rows, columns);
for i = 1:rows*columns
    nexttile;
    plot(1:2);
end
tile_of_interest = [2, 3];
tile_number = (tile_of_interest(1) - 1) * columns + tile_of_interest(2);
nexttile(tile_number);
hold on
plot(1:2, 2:-1:1, "r");
hold off

[Dave B]

@Sven Merk - starting in R2022b you can use tilenum to retrieve the tile number. The math isn't difficult, but it's one less thing to have to write, and tilenum will check the layout's number of rows/columns as well as the TileIndexing:

rows = 2;
columns = 8;
t = tiledlayout(rows, columns);
for i = 1:rows*columns
    nexttile
    plot(1:2);
end

row = 2;
column = 3;
tile_number = tilenum(t, row, column);
nexttile(tile_number);
hold on
plot(1:2, 2:-1:1, "r");
hold off

[Sven Merk]

Good to know, thank you. I didn't see this.