Subplot and additional spacing?

Hi everyone, I am working on some custome layouting classes for plots I will use in my thesis. I want to autoamtically respace subplots to optimally fill the space provided by a figure.

By default in matlab subplot() the individual axes have a large spacing, I want to have them to be a lot tighter.

However when using the Position properties of the axes, I move the plot area without knowledge of sapce needed for the labels.

Is there a way to get information on how much space the labels need in addition?

For single axes plots I can use the TightInset property, but this is notworking for subplots.

Answer 1

[Voss]

% create some subplots with varying TightInsets:
figure('Color','g'); % (color the figure to see its extent in the plots here in MATLAB Answers)
h_ax = zeros(2,2);
for ii = 1:4
    h_ax(ii) = subplot(2,2,ii);
    plot(1:10);
    if ii < 4
        xlabel(sprintf('x_{%d}',ii));
        if ii < 3
            ylabel(sprintf('y_{%d}',ii));
        end
    end
    if ii < 3
        title('Title');
    end
end

copyobj(gcf(),groot()); % make a copy for demonstrating before/after setting the subplots' Positions

% get the TightInsets, to be used to calculate the sizes of the spaces
% necessary to fit any labels, etc.:
inset = get(h_ax,'TightInset');
inset = vertcat(inset{:})

inset = 4×4

0.0773 0.1029 0.0130 0.0494 0.0773 0.1029 0.0130 0.0494 0.0327 0.1029 0.0130 0.0196 0.0327 0.0482 0.0130 0.0196

% left margin should be the bigger of the left margin required for subplot
% 1 and the left margin required for subplot 3 (similarly for the others):
left_margin = max(inset([1 3],1));
right_margin = max(inset([2 4],3));
top_margin = max(inset([1 2],4));
bottom_margin = max(inset([3 4],2));
middle_space_x = max(inset([1 3],3)+inset([2 4],1));
middle_space_y = max(inset([1 2],2)+inset([3 4],4));

% the axes take up all the space left over after subtracting the size of
% the spaces from the figure size ('normalized' axes Units assumed, so 
% that the figure width and height are both 1), and all axes are the same 
% size:
axes_width = (1-left_margin-right_margin-middle_space_x)/2;
axes_height = (1-top_margin-bottom_margin-middle_space_y)/2;

% write down the axes' new positions in terms of the space sizes:
new_pos = [ ...
    left_margin                           bottom_margin+axes_height+middle_space_y axes_width axes_height; ...
    left_margin+axes_width+middle_space_x bottom_margin+axes_height+middle_space_y axes_width axes_height; ...
    left_margin                           bottom_margin                            axes_width axes_height; ...
    left_margin+axes_width+middle_space_x bottom_margin                            axes_width axes_height; ...
    ];
% apply the new positions:
for ii = 1:numel(h_ax)
    set(h_ax(ii),'Position',new_pos(ii,:));
end

[Florian Rössing]

Thanks alot. Took me some time to get back to this, as it was a side project, but I was able to build a function from it that I can use.

[Voss]

You're welcome!