Plotting streamlines from a dataset (x,y,u,v)

I am attempting to plot streamlines from some location and velocity data provided in a .txt. I have x, y, u, v where x & y are positions and u & v are their corresponding velocity components. I would like to plot streamlines and vectors of this data. Everything is in vector form with 345600 elements. I have manually determined I have 640 unique x values and 540 unique y values. Essentially there is matrix that can be made from this in the form of (640 x 540). I attempted utilizing meshgrid(x,y) and meshgrid(u,v). But this led to issues due to the resulting size when you mesgrid two vectors of 345600.

I have a poor understanding of how exactly meshgrid works. Given the nature of the table I am provided, is it necessary to meshgrid (x, y) and meshgrid (u, v)? Or should I reshape the x, y, u, & v vectors in order to get matrices that can be used in streamlines(x,y,u,v,startx,starty)?

Note: If this code does require a meshgrid for x ,y, u, & v, then it will almost certainly be necessary to reduces the resolution of the data to make calculations. Perhaps only using every 5th value. Also, I think the resolution will cause the arrows and streamlines too be too close together (?).

clear all; close; clc;

ntot = 345600;
n1 = 100000; n2 = 101000;
filename = 'run27_avg';
data = readmatrix(strcat('.\average_velocities\',filename,'.txt'));

x  = data(:,1);
% [fc,fia,fic]=unique(x) 
% length(unique(x,'rows')) 
x  = x(n1:n2, 1);
y  = data(:,2);
y  = y(n1:n2, 1);
[x,y] = meshgrid(x,y);

u = data(:,3);
u = u(n1:n2, 1);
v = data(:,4);
v = v(n1:n2, 1);
[u,v] = meshgrid(u,v);

figure()
quiver(x,y,u,v)
startx = 0.1:0.1:1;
starty = ones(size(startx));
streamline(x,y,u,v,startx,starty)

Answer 1

[Joseph Cheng]

So, meshgrid generates a grid of x and grid of y values so index wise you get the xy pair-combo. usually very useful when you're building a grid of points. here is a bit of snippet of code that goes through for you the reshaping of data and meshgrid

close all
data = dlmread('run27_avg.txt',' ',1,0);
%just get the min and max of the data x and y
spanX = [min(data(:,1)) max(data(:,1))];
spanY = [min(data(:,2)) max(data(:,2))];
%generate equally spaced x and y arrays
Xq = linspace(spanX(1),spanX(2),640);
Yq = linspace(spanY(1),spanY(2),540);
%create the combination of xq and yq
[Xq, Yq]=meshgrid(Xq,Yq);
%interp the data if the x and y data in the file is not in an equally spaced grid
Uq = griddata(data(:,1),data(:,2),data(:,3),Xq,Yq);
Vq = griddata(data(:,1),data(:,2),data(:,4),Xq,Yq);

figure(1),quiver(Xq,Yq,Uq,Vq)
startx = 0.1:0.1:1;
starty = ones(size(startx));
   hgridinterp = streamline(Xq,Yq,Uq,Vq,startx,starty);
    set(hgridinterp,'color','green');
    
%if in a grid you can reshape the data (looking at the file x is listed
%first from 1:640 for 540 times... so after reshaping to 640x540(rows x col)
%transpose it so x runs along the horizontal
reshapeX = reshape(data(:,1),640,540)';
reshapeY = reshape(data(:,2),640,540)';
reshapeU = reshape(data(:,3),640,540)';
reshapeV = reshape(data(:,4),640,540)';
%
    hreshape=streamline(reshapeX,reshapeY,reshapeU,reshapeV,startx,starty);
     set(hreshape,'color','red')
     set(hreshape,'linestyle','-.')    

for you it does look like that data is in a grid but not equally spaced. at first i thought streamline would care but i guess not. the X values (data(:,1)) jumps between 0.057 and 0.0571 delta values (difference between points).