Synchronise different viewing angles onto same scatter plot

I'm trying to have a figure with two subplots (or preferably even two separate figures), showing the same 3d point cloud, but from different viewing angles. I would like to see the same point cloud from two different angles to get a better feeling for the points' locations in the 3d space, and I must be able to rotate the plots in sync. I managed to have 2 plots synchronised using linkprop, but I can't change the angle of one of the plots once they're synced.

Thanks for any help!

[Walter Roberson]

The rotate tool changes view() which in turn changes the axes CameraPosition and CameraViewAngle . Considering that you want different viewing angles, exactly what is it that you want to be synchronized between the two? CameraPosition, CameraViewAngle, CameraTarget, CameraUpVector ?

In terms of view, if the first plot is

view(a,b)

then what should be the view() for the second plot?

[Lima Kilo]

I want to have the view synchronised. If the first plot was

 view(a,b)

then I would like the second one to be something like

 view(a+20,b+20)

Sorry for my late reply, but I didn't see that only answers, not comments, would get email notifications.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You will need to use addlistener for changes to the CameraPosition and CameraViewAngle properties . In the listener, you can call view() on the first axis to find the values that you would then add 20 to and call view() for the second axes.

linkprop and linkaxes are only for synchronizing exact values, and do not provide for computing one property based upon the other.

[Lima Kilo]

I tried (where f1 is my figure)

 lh1 = addlistener(f1, 'CameraViewAngle','PostSet',@viewChangedCallback)

and get the error:

 Error using matlab.ui.Figure/addlistener
The name 'CameraViewAngle' is not an accessible property for an instance of class 'matlab.ui.Figure'.

When I tried setting a listener for 'Position' property instead, which was one of the few examples I found online, I got the error

 Error using matlab.ui.Figure/addlistener
While adding a PostSet listener, property 'Position' in class 'matlab.ui.Figure' is not defined to be SetObservable.

Can I even set that property for figures or do I have to define my own class for that?

[Walter Roberson]

Add the listener to the axes, not to the figure.

[Lima Kilo]

Ok, so I tried

 f1 = figure;
 sc1 = scatter3(1,1,1,'r+');
 h1 = addlistener(gca, 'CameraViewAngle','PostSet',@viewChangedCallback)

(only one figure, so gca points to the right one) with a callback function

 function viewChangedCallback()
 disp('asdf');

But nothing happens when I rotate the view. Am I on the right track?

[Walter Roberson]

Okay, it appears that you can addlistener on 'View', at least in R2016a.

[Lima Kilo]

Awesome, that works. Thanks!

If someone else has the same problem, here is a minimum working example:

 f1 = figure;
 subplot(1,2,1)
 sc1 = scatter3(1,1,1,'r+');
 subplot(1,2,2)
 sc2 = scatter3(1,1,1,'g+');
 subplot(1,2,1)
 lh1 = addlistener(gca, 'View','PostSet',@viewChangedCallback)

and the callback function:

 function viewChangedCallback(src,evt)
 subplot(1,2,1)
 [az, el] = view(gca);
 subplot(1,2,2)
 view(gca, az+20, el+20);
 subplot(1,2,1)

For robustness, gca should be replaced with fixed references.