Pre-allocating linked arrays for "live" plotting

I am currently developing a GUI matlab program to plot and analyze real time data from a serial port. I have a serial object with a BytesAvailableFcn that calls every time a terminator character is received. This callback then parses the data and adds it to an array linked to a graph. The graph is then updated at regular intervals using a timer.

My question is how should I pre-allocate the data arrays linked to the graph. Some of the things I have tried are below.

If I did not have to consider performance I could just resize the array every time I get new data.

x = []
y = []
set(plot_handle, 'XDataSource', 'x', 'YDataSource', 'y')

function serial_callback
  % get data from serial obj
  % parse data
  % add data to plot arrays
  x = [x x_data]
  y = [y y_data]
end
function timer_callback
  refreshdata
  drawnow
end

for obvious memory reasons this gets inefficient very quickly. I have also tried pre-allocating the array as Nan's and adding data to the first Nan.

x = nan(200)
y = nan(200)
set(plot_handle, 'XDataSource', 'x', 'YDataSource', 'y')

function serial_callback
  % get data from serial obj
  % parse data
  % add data to plot arrays
  index = find(isnan(x),1); % using a 'pointer' instead of the find command would speed this up but you get the idea
  x(index) = x_data
  y(index) = y_data
end
function timer_callback
  refreshdata
  drawnow
end

this works in that the space is presumably pre-allocated and data points I don't have yet don't get plotted. It however messes with the legend. I don't exactly know how the color of legend symbols is calculated in graphs with Cdata (which I am also using) but the Nan's make the legend symbols disappear.

I have also considered setting the linked array equal to an increasingly large part of a pre-allocated array assuming matlab will only copy the references as long as I don't modify the linked data but this seems to be getting very complex. Is there an easier way to ask for a large empty array that I can add plot data to.

Answer 1

[Michelle Hirsch]

I think the issue might simply be with your call to nan. You are creating 200 x 200 arrays of NaNs for x and y. I imagine your intention is:

x = nan(200,1);

I've done this same type of thing many times, and have built some plotting widgets to make it easier. You might find the utilities I put on the File Exchange to be helpful: Test and Measurement Widgets

[Will]

Thanks for the response, you are correct but I believe my original code was nan(200,1). I missed that simplifying it for this post. I don't think it would have plotted if x and y were matrices instead of vectors. So far I have been solving this problem by pre-allocating with numbers outside my plotting range, which works because it is a scatter plot but it still does not seem like a great solution.