#Matlab polytool export how to
#Matlab polytool export pdf
#Matlab polytool export download

Here is an image that demonstrates such alpha-matting: The alpha-matting feature allows textured backgrounds to show through the exported figure, which can be useful for presentation slides. In export_fig.m, I also added anti-aliasing for raster outputs (by exporting at a higher resolution and downsizing), and alpha-matting (by exporting with both black and white backgrounds to compute transparency) for PNG outputs. Control of JPEG quality is achieved by passing the quality option to imwrite in export_fig.m. This last feature is obligatory for some publications, and export_fig is sometimes recommended by conferences or journals for this reason. In addition, ghostscript also crops the figure border to the EPS bounding box, and embeds fonts in the PDF.

#Matlab polytool export pdf

For example, images in PDF outputs would be heavily compressed and I wanted control over image quality.Įps2pdf (which is part of the export_fig package) takes a quality setting as input, and converts this into suitable settings for ghostscript to convert the EPS file to a PDF, allowing users to get much higher fidelity output. Unfortunately, the quality of their default outputs just wasn’t good enough. The two standard MATLAB functions for exporting figures are saveas and print. I wrote export_fig to produce nice looking figures for my PhD thesis and journal papers. By contrast, when exporting to png (top left), translucency is preserved (see how the graphic below shows through), the figure is anti-aliased, but zooming-in does not reveal more detail.Įxport_fig demo usage (click for details) Given a figure containing a translucent mesh (top right), export_fig can export to pdf (bottom center), which allows the figure to be zoomed in without losing quality (because it’s a vector graphic), but isn’t able to reproduce the translucency, and also, depending on the viewer, creates small gaps between the patches, which are seen here as thin white lines.

#Matlab polytool export download

If you’ve ever wondered what’s going on in the icon on the export_fig download page (reproduced below), then this explanation is for you: The icon is designed to demonstrate as many of export_fig‘s features as possible.

The following excerpt comes from the README file (please do read the entire file):

#Matlab polytool export how to

For his benefit, and anyone else’s interest, I will briefly describe the layout and functionality of the toolbox.īefore starting, I always recommend that new users read the README file, to get a better understanding of the available options, how the functions perform, how to do certain frequently-asked things, and what problems still remain. Yair has very kindly agreed to take over maintenance of export_fig. Today, Oliver describes the basic technical mechanisms underlying export_fig. export_fig has improved the output quality of figures for so many numerous Matlab users that it is hard to imagine a Matlab File Exchange without it. For the past few years, excluding short spans of time, Oliver’s export_fig was the File Exchange’s most downloaded utility, by a wide margin.

This is no easy feat in a File Exchange that hosts ~23K utilities at latest count. For the past several years Oliver has been a top contributor on the Matlab File Exchange, and several of his utilities have earned the prestigious distinction as “Pick of the Week”. I would like to introduce guest blogger Oliver Woodford.