Shared Tiledlayout colorbar for R2020a

So there is a fast method for versions R2020b and after to place a shared colorbar. But I have 2020a. How can a shared colorbar be placed without the colorbar.Layout property ?

Answer 1

[Nivedita]

Hi Alessandro,

I understand that you are looking for an alternative way to create a shared Colorbar in MATLAB R2020a which does not support the “colorbar.Layout” property.

You can work around this issue by utilising the “colorbar.Position” property. Here is an example:

[X,Y] = meshgrid(-5:.5:5);
Z1 = X.^2 + Y.^2;
Z2 = Z1 + 50;
Z3 = Z1 + 100;
Z4 = Z1 - 50;
 
% Create the main figure and axes for your plots
fig = figure();
 
% Generate the plots and store their handles
ax(1) = subplot(2,2,1);
surf(Z1);
 
ax(2) = subplot(2,2,2);
surf(Z2);
 
ax(3) = subplot(2,2,3);
surf(Z3);
 
ax(4) = subplot(2,2,4);
surf(Z4);
 
set(ax, 'Colormap', jet, 'Clim', [-50, 150]);
cbh=colorbar(ax(end));
 
% Reposition colorbar to the figure's left edge by manually using the Position property
cbh.Position(1) = 0.93;
cbh.Position(2) = 0.05; 
cbh.Position(3) = 0.02;
cbh.Position(4) = 0.9;

In the above code, I have generated a sample data and used the “subplot” function to achieve the tiled view of the plots. I have stored their handles in the “ax” variable to use it later to assign a shared colormap for the generated plots using the “set” function.

Then, the Colorbar handles has been stored in the “cbh” variable. To achieve the shared Colorbar, I have manually used the “Position” property to reposition the Colorbar to the left edge of the figure and changed its dimensions.

Here is what the output looks:

For more information about the “colorbar.Position” property, you can refer to the following documentation link: Colorbar.Position

I hope this helps!

Regards,

Nivedita.