Average matrices in a cell array within a structure Matlab

Hi,

I have a structure AVG of size 1 x 6 which has one field averageNEST that is a cell array also of size 1 x 6.

Each averageNEST contains matrices of varying sizes (in one dimension), so for example

AVG(1).averageNEST{1,1} is of size 281 x 3 x 19 and

AVG(1).averageNEST{1,2} is of size 231 x 3 x 19

The 2nd and 3rd dimensions of the matrices are always 3 and 19, it is only the first dimension that can change.

I want to average over all the matrices contained within AVG(1).averageNEST and obtain one matrix of size X x 3 x 19 where X is the size of the smallest matrix in AVG(1).averageNEST.

Then I want to do this for all 6 averageNEST in AVG - so have a separate averaged matrix for AVG(1), AVG(2) ... AVG(6).

I have tried multiple things including trying to concatenate matrices using the following code:

 for i=1:6
    min_epoch = epoch + 1;
         for ii=1:19
            averageNEST(:,:,ii) = [AVG(i).averageNEST(1:min_epoch,:,ii)];
         end
 end

and then average this but it doesn't work and now I'm really confused about what I'm doing!

Can anyone help?

[Stephen23]

"I want to average over all the matrices contained within AVG(1).averageNEST and obtain one matrix of size X x 3 x 19 where X is the size of the smallest matrix..."

What does this mean exactly ? Do the data from the remainder of the larger arrays simply get discarded? Given your example arrays:

AVG(1).averageNEST{1,1} is of size 281 x 3 x 19
AVG(1).averageNEST{1,2} is of size 231 x 3 x 19

What size is the "average" of these two arrays? What is the data in row 281 of the first array "averaged" with?

[Maheen Siddiqui]

Yes, the data from the remainder of the larger arrays gets discarded.

Ok so the data in

   AVG(1).averageNEST{1,1}(1:231,1,1)

   gets averaged with 

   AVG(1).averageNEST{1,2}(1:231,1,1)

then

   AVG(1).averageNEST{1,1}(1:231,2,1)

   gets averaged with 

   AVG(1).averageNEST{1,2}(1:231,2,1)

the averaging is done over each of the columns in the second and 3rd dimensions.

Hope that makes sense.

[Bob Thompson]

Are the values being averaged really just the two consecutive arrays, or are you doing so for all six averageNEST arrays?

I'm sure Stephen could come up with something better, but I would just run a series of for loops.

for I = 1:size(AVG) % Loops through all AVG
    for J = 1:size(averageNEST{1},3) % Loops through third dimension
        for K = 1:size(averageNEST{1},2) % Loops through second dimension
            average = mean(AVG(I).averageNEST{:}(1:min(size(averageNEST{:},1)),K,J);
        end
    end
end