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timeoptions

Create list of time plot options

Description

Use the timeoptions command to create a TimeOptions object to customize time plot appearance. Use this object to customize the appearance of a time plot created using impulseplot, initialplot (Control System Toolbox), lsimplot, or stepplot and override the plot preferences for the MATLAB® session in which you create the time plot.

The options you specify for a TimeOptions object correspond to properties of the ImpulsePlot, InitialPlot (Control System Toolbox), LSimPlot or StepPlot chart object.

Creation

Description

plotoptions = timeoptions returns a default set of options for time plots You can use these options to customize the time plot appearance using the command line. This syntax is useful when you want to write a script to generate plots that look the same regardless of the preference settings of the MATLAB session in which you run the script.

example

plotoptions = timeoptions("cstprefs") initializes the plot options with options you selected in the Control System Toolbox™ and System Identification Toolbox™ Preferences Editor. For more information about the editor, see Specify Toolbox Preferences for Linear Analysis Plots. This syntax is useful when you want to change a few plot options but otherwise use your default preferences. A script that uses this syntax may generate results that look different when run in a session with different preferences.

example

Properties

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Response

Option to normalize plot, specified as either 'on' or 'off'.

This option corresponds to the Normalize property of the chart object.

Settling time threshold, specified as a positive scalar less than 1.

This option is ignored by lsimplot.

This option corresponds to the Characteristics.ConfidenceRegion.SettlingTime.Threshold property of the chart object.

Rise time limits between the values of 0 and 1, specified as a two-element vector of the form [min,max].

This option is supported only for stepplot.

This option corresponds to the Characteristics.RiseTime.Limits property of the chart object.

Number of standard deviations to use to plot the confidence region, specified as a scalar. This option is applicable to identified models only.

This option is supported only for stepplot and impulseplot.

This option corresponds to the Characteristics.ConfidenceRegion.NumberOfStandardDeviations property of the chart object.

Dependencies

This option is supported only for identified models.

Units

Time units, specified as one of the following values:

  • 'nanoseconds'

  • 'microseconds'

  • 'milliseconds'

  • 'seconds'

  • 'minutes'

  • 'hours'

  • 'days'

  • 'weeks'

  • 'months'

  • 'years'

You can also specify 'auto' which uses time units specified in the TimeUnit property of the input system. For multiple systems with different time units, the units of the first system are used.

This option corresponds to the TimeUnit property of the chart object.

Inputs and Outputs

Grouping of input-output (I/O) pairs, specified as one of the following:

  • 'none' — Do not group inputs or outputs.

  • 'inputs' — Group only inputs.

  • 'outputs' — Group only outputs.

  • 'all' — Group all input-output pairs.

lsimplot and initialplot support only the 'none' and 'all' values.

This option corresponds to the IOGrouping property of the chart object.

Input label style, specified as a structure with the following fields:

  • FontSize — Font size, specified as a scalar value greater than zero in point units. The default font size depends on the specific operating system and locale. One point equals 1/72 inch.

  • FontWeight — Character thickness, specified as 'Normal' or 'bold'. MATLAB uses the FontWeight property to select a font from those available on your system. Not all fonts have a bold weight. Therefore, specifying a bold font weight can still result in the normal font weight.

  • FontAngle — Character slant, specified as 'Normal' or 'italic'. Not all fonts have both font styles. Therefore, the italic font might look the same as the normal font.

  • Color — Text color, specified as an RGB triplet. The default color is dark grey with the RGB triplet [0.4,0.4,0.4].

  • Interpreter — Text interpreter, specified as one of these values:

    • 'tex' — Interpret characters using a subset of TeX markup. This is the default value of Interpreter.

    • 'latex' — Interpret characters using LaTeX markup.

    • 'none' — Display literal characters.

This property is ignored by lsimplot and initialplot.

This option corresponds to the InputLabels property of the chart object.

Output label style, specified as a structure with the following fields:

  • FontSize — Font size, specified as a scalar value greater than zero in point units. The default font size depends on the specific operating system and locale. One point equals 1/72 inch.

  • FontWeight — Character thickness, specified as 'Normal' or 'bold'. MATLAB uses the FontWeight property to select a font from those available on your system. Not all fonts have a bold weight. Therefore, specifying a bold font weight can still result in the normal font weight.

  • FontAngle — Character slant, specified as 'Normal' or ''italic'. Not all fonts have both font styles. Therefore, the italic font might look the same as the normal font.

  • Color — Text color, specified as an RGB triplet. The default color is dark grey with the RGB triplet [0.4,0.4,0.4].

  • Interpreter — Text interpreter, specified as one of these values:

    • 'tex' — Interpret characters using a subset of TeX markup. This is the default value of Interpreter.

    • 'latex' — Interpret characters using LaTeX markup.

    • 'none' — Display literal characters.

This option corresponds to the OutputLabels property of the chart object.

Option to display inputs, specified as {'on'}, {'off'}, or a cell array with multiple elements.

This property is ignored by lsimplot and initialplot.

This option corresponds to the InputVisible property of the chart object.

Option to display outputs, specified as {'on'}, {'off'}, or a cell array with multiple elements.

This option corresponds to the OutputVisible property of the chart object.

Title and Axis Labels

Title text and style, specified as a structure with the following fields:

  • String — Label text, specified as a character vector. By default, the plot is titled 'Bode Diagram'.

  • FontSize — Font size, specified as a scalar value greater than zero in point units. The default font size depends on the specific operating system and locale. One point equals 1/72 inch.

  • FontWeight — Character thickness, specified as 'Normal' or 'bold'. MATLAB uses the FontWeight property to select a font from those available on your system. Not all fonts have a bold weight. Therefore, specifying a bold font weight can still result in the normal font weight.

  • FontAngle — Character slant, specified as 'Normal' or 'italic'. Not all fonts have both font styles. Therefore, the italic font might look the same as the normal font.

  • Color — Text color, specified as an RGB triplet. The default color is black specified by the RGB triplet [0,0,0].

  • Interpreter — Text interpreter, specified as one of these values:

    • 'tex' — Interpret characters using a subset of TeX markup. This is the default value of Interpreter.

    • 'latex' — Interpret characters using LaTeX markup.

    • 'none' — Display literal characters.

This option corresponds to the Title property of the chart object.

X-axis label text and style, specified as a structure with the following fields:

  • String — Label text, specified as a character vector. By default, the axis is titled based on the frequency units FreqUnits.

  • FontSize — Font size, specified as a scalar value greater than zero in point units. The default font size depends on the specific operating system and locale. One point equals 1/72 inch.

  • FontWeight — Character thickness, specified as 'Normal' or 'bold'. MATLAB uses the FontWeight property to select a font from those available on your system. Not all fonts have a bold weight. Therefore, specifying a bold font weight can still result in the normal font weight.

  • FontAngle — Character slant, specified as 'Normal' or 'italic'. Not all fonts have both font styles. Therefore, the italic font might look the same as the normal font.

  • Color — Text color, specified as an RGB triplet. The default color is black specified by the RGB triplet [0,0,0].

  • Interpreter — Text interpreter, specified as one of these values:

    • 'tex' — Interpret characters using a subset of TeX markup. This is the default value of Interpreter.

    • 'latex' — Interpret characters using LaTeX markup.

    • 'none' — Display literal characters.

This option corresponds to the XLabel property of the chart object.

Y-axis label text and style, specified as a structure with the following fields:

  • String — Label text, specified as a cell array of character vectors. By default, the axis label is a 1x2 cell array with 'Magnitude' and 'Phase'.

  • FontSize — Font size, specified as a scalar value greater than zero in point units. The default font size depends on the specific operating system and locale. One point equals 1/72 inch.

  • FontWeight — Character thickness, specified as 'Normal' or 'bold'. MATLAB uses the FontWeight property to select a font from those available on your system. Not all fonts have a bold weight. Therefore, specifying a bold font weight can still result in the normal font weight.

  • FontAngle — Character slant, specified as 'Normal' or 'italic'. Not all fonts have both font styles. Therefore, the italic font might look the same as the normal font.

  • Color — Text color, specified as an RGB triplet. The default color is black specified by the RGB triplet [0,0,0].

  • Interpreter — Text interpreter, specified as one of these values:

    • 'tex' — Interpret characters using a subset of TeX markup. This is the default value of Interpreter.

    • 'latex' — Interpret characters using LaTeX markup.

    • 'none' — Display literal characters.

This option corresponds to the YLabel property of the chart object.

Tick label style, specified as a structure with the following fields:

  • FontSize — Font size, specified as a scalar value greater than zero in point units. The default font size depends on the specific operating system and locale. One point equals 1/72 inch.

  • FontWeight — Character thickness, specified as 'Normal' or 'bold'. MATLAB uses the FontWeight property to select a font from those available on your system. Not all fonts have a bold weight. Therefore, specifying a bold font weight can still result in the normal font weight.

  • FontAngle — Character slant, specified as 'Normal' or 'italic'. Not all fonts have both font styles. Therefore, the italic font might look the same as the normal font.

  • Color — Text color, specified as an RGB triplet. The default color is black specified by the RGB triplet [0,0,0].

Grid

Toggle grid display on the plot, specified as either 'off' or 'on'.

This option corresponds to the GridVisible property of the chart object.

Color of the grid lines, specified as an RGB triplet. The default color is light grey specified by the RGB triplet [0.15 0.15 0.15].

Axis Limits

X-axis limit selection mode, specified as one of the following values:

  • 'auto' — Enable automatic limit selection, which is based on the total span of the plotted data.

  • 'manual' — Manually specify the axis limits. To specify the axis limits, set the XLim option.

This option corresponds to the XLimitsMode property of the chart object.

Selection mode for the y-axis limits, specified as one of these values:

  • 'auto' — Enable automatic limit selection, which is based on the total span of the plotted data.

  • 'manual' — Manually specify the axis limits. To specify the axis limits, set the YLim option.

This option corresponds to the YLimitsMode property of the chart object.

X-axis limits, specified as a cell array of two-element vector of the form [min,max].

This option corresponds to the XLimits property of the chart object.

Y-axis limits, specified as a cell array of two-element vector of the form [min,max].

This option corresponds to the YLimits property of the chart object.

Object Functions

impulseplotPlot impulse response of dynamic system
initialplot (Control System Toolbox)Plot initial condition response of dynamic system
lsimplotPlot simulated time response of dynamic system to arbitrary inputs
stepplotPlot step response of dynamic system

Examples

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Create a default time options set.

opt = timeoptions;

Enable plotting of normalized responses.

opt.Normalize = 'on';

Plot the step response of two transfer function models using the specified options.

sys1 = tf(10,[1,1]);
sys2 = tf(5,[1,5]);
stepplot(sys1,sys2,opt);

MATLAB figure

The plot shows the normalized step response for the two transfer function models.

For this example, use the plot handle to change the time units to minutes and turn on the grid.

Generate a random state-space model with 5 states and create the step response plot with chart object sp.

rng("default")
sys = rss(5);
sp = stepplot(sys);

MATLAB figure

Change the time units to minutes and turn on the grid. To do so, edit properties of the chart object.

sp.TimeUnit = "minutes";
grid on;

MATLAB figure

The step plot automatically updates when you modify the chart object.

Alternatively, you can also use the timeoptions command to specify the required plot options. First, create an options set based on the toolbox preferences.

plotoptions = timeoptions("cstprefs");

Change properties of the options set by setting the time units to minutes and enabling the grid.

plotoptions.TimeUnits = 'minutes';
plotoptions.Grid = "on";
stepplot(sys,plotoptions);

MATLAB figure

Depending on your own toolbox preferences, the plot you obtain might look different from this plot. Only the properties that you set explicitly, in this example TimeUnits and Grid, override the toolbox preferences.

For this example, examine the step response of the following zero-pole-gain model and limit the step plot to tFinal = 15 s. Use 15-point blue text for the title. This plot should look the same, regardless of the preferences of the MATLAB session in which it is generated.

sys = zpk(-1,[-0.2+3j,-0.2-3j],1)*tf([1 1],[1 0.05]);
tFinal = 15;

First, create a default options set using timeoptions.

plotoptions = timeoptions;

Next change the required properties of the options set plotoptions.

plotoptions.Title.FontSize = 15;
plotoptions.Title.Color = [0 0 1];

Now, create the step response plot using the options set plotoptions.

h = stepplot(sys,tFinal,plotoptions);

MATLAB figure

Because plotoptions begins with a fixed set of options, the plot result is independent of the toolbox preferences of the MATLAB session.

By default, lsimplot simulates the model assuming all states are zero at the start of the simulation. When simulating the response of a state-space model, use the optional x0 input argument to specify nonzero initial state values. Consider the following two-state SISO state-space model.

A = [-1.5 -3;
      3   -1];
B = [1.3; 0];
C = [1.15 2.3];
D = 0;
sys = ss(A,B,C,D);

Suppose that you want to allow the system to evolve from a known set of initial states with no input for 2 s, and then apply a unit step change. Specify the vector x0 of initial state values, and create the input vector.

x0 = [-0.2 0.3];
t = 0:0.05:8;
u = zeros(length(t),1);
u(t>=2) = 1;

First, create a default options set using timeoptions.

plotoptions = timeoptions;

Next change the required properties of the options set plotoptions and plot the simulated response with the zero order hold option.

plotoptions.Title.FontSize = 15;
plotoptions.Title.Color = [0 0 1];
plotoptions.Grid = 'on';
h = lsimplot(sys,u,t,x0,plotoptions,'zoh');
hold on
title('Simulated Time Response with Initial Conditions')

MATLAB figure

The first half of the plot shows the free evolution of the system from the initial state values [-0.2 0.3]. At t = 2 there is a step change to the input, and the plot shows the system response to this new signal beginning from the state values at that time. Because plotoptions begins with a fixed set of options, the plot result is independent of the toolbox preferences of the MATLAB session.

For this example, change time units to minutes and turn the grid on for the simulated response plot. Consider the following transfer function.

sys = tf(3,[1 2 3]);

To compute the response of this system to an arbitrary input signal, provide lsimplot with a vector of the times t at which you want to compute the response and a vector u containing the corresponding signal values. For instance, plot the system response to a ramping step signal that starts at 0 at time t = 0, ramps from 0 at t = 1 to 1 at t = 2, and then holds steady at 1. Define t and compute the values of u.

t = 0:0.04:8;
u = max(0,min(t-1,1));

Use lsimplot plot the system response to the signal with chart object lp.

lp = lsimplot(sys,u,t);
grid on

MATLAB figure

The plot shows the applied input (u,t) in gray and the system response in blue.

Modify the chart object to change the time units to minutes.

lp.TimeUnit = "minutes";

MATLAB figure

The plot automatically updates when you modify the chart object.

Alternatively, you can also use the timeoptions command to specify the required plot options. First, create an options set based on the toolbox preferences.

plotoptions = timeoptions('cstprefs');

Change properties of the options set by setting the time units to minutes and enabling the grid.

plotoptions.TimeUnits = 'minutes';
plotoptions.Grid = 'on';
lsimplot(sys,u,t,plotoptions);

MATLAB figure

Version History

Introduced in R2012a