Help with plot axis

I have a piece of code that goes through a loop 1000 times determining the values of x and y. I then plot these coordinates.

I want the x and y axis to be the same so I tried axis equal however I obtained a graph with the axises as so. Can anyone explain why the x and y axis aren't equal? The x axis ranges from -300 to 300 and the y axis from 0 to 450.

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

The axis equal call uses the same length for the data units along each axis. It does not affect the range of values. If you want to change those, use the axis call as:

axis([xmin  xmax    ymin  ymax])

You can also combine that call with an axis equal call, so one does not cancel or override the other.

[Sinead Mc Kinney]

Thanks for your response. However i'm not sure i am making use of this correctly. I want the x and y axis both to span the same range of values. See image attached - i would like the x axis to range from 0 to 450 as the y axis does. I have tried the following however i receive an error.

 ymin = min(coords(:,2));
 ymax = max(coords(:,2));
 rangeOfyAxis=ymax-ymin;   
 xmin = -floor(rangeOfyAxis/2);
 xmax = floor(rangeOfyAxis/2);
 axis([xmin xmax,ymin ymax])

Error using matlab.graphics.axis.Axes/set Value must be a 1x2 vector of numeric type in which the second element is larger than the first and may be Inf

Error in axis>LocSetLimits (line 269) set(ax,...

Error in axis (line 98) LocSetLimits(ax(j),cur_arg,names);

Error in simulateLightningTenToThePowerOfThree (line 51) axis([xmin xmax,ymin ymax])

[Star Strider]

My pleasure.

‘I would like the x axis to range from 0 to 450 as the y axis does.’

Use the ‘ymin’ and ‘ymax’ values for both in your axis call:

axis([ymin  ymax    ymin  ymax])

That should do what you want.