Plotting arrays using a grouped horizontal bar graph - arrays

Question

I am trying to generate a graph that should look similar to:
My arrays are:
Array4:[Nan;Nan;.......;20;21;22;23;24;..........60]
Array3:[[Nan;Nan;.......;20;21;22;23;24;..........60]
Array2:[0;1;2;3;4;5;6;Nan;Nan;Nan;Nan;17;18;.....60]
Array1:[0;1;2;3;4;5;6;Nan;Nan;Nan;Nan;17;18;.....60]
I cannot find the right way to group my arrays in order to plot them in the way shown on the above graph.
I tried using the following function explained in: http://uk.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/barh.html
barh(1:numel(x),y,'hist')
where y=[Array1,Array2;Array3,Array4] and x={'1m';'2m';'3m';......'60m'}
but it does not work.

Answer 1

Why Your Current Approach Isn't Working
Your intuition makes sense to me, but the barh function you are using doesn't work the way you think it does. Specifically, you are interpreting the meaning of the x and y inputs to that function incorrectly. Those are inputs are constant values, not entire axes. The first y input refers to the end-point of the bar that stretches horizontally from x = 0 and the first x input refers to location on the y-axis of the horizontal bar. To illustrate what I mean, I've provided the below horizontal bar graph:
You can find this same picture in the official documentation of the MATLAB barh function. The code used to generate this bar graph is also given in the documentation, shown below:
x = 1900:10:2000;
y = [57,91,105,123,131,150,...
170,203,226.5,249,281.4];
figure;
barh(x, y);
The individual elements of the x array, rather confusingly, show up on the y-axis as the starting locations of each bar. The corresponding elements of the y array are the lengths of each bar. This is the reason that the arrays must be the same length, and this illustrates that they are not specifications of the x and y axes as one might intuitively believe.
An Approach To Solve Your Problem
First things first, the easiest approach is to do this manually with the plot function and a set of lines that represent floating bars. Consult the official documentation for the plot function if you'd like to plot the lines with some sort of color coordination in mind - the code I present (modified version of this answer on StackOverflow) just switches the color of the floating bars between red and blue. I tried to comment the code so that the purpose of each variable is clear. The code I present below matches the floating bar graph that you want to be plotted, if you are alright with replacing thick floating bars with 2D lines floating on a plot.
I used the data that you gave in your question to specify the floating horizontal bars that this script would output - a screenshot is shown below the code. Array1 & Array2:[0;1;2;3;4;5;6;Nan;Nan;Nan;Nan;17;18;.....60], these arrays go from 0 to 6 (length = 6) and 17 to 60 (length = 60 - 17 = 43). Because there is a "discontinuity" of sorts from 7 to 16, I have to define two floating bars for each array. Hence, the first four values in my length array are [6, 6, 43, 43]. Where the first 6 and the first 43 correspond to Array1 and the second 6 and the second 43 correspond to Array2. Recognizing this "discontinuity", the starting point of the first floating bar for Array1 and Array2 is x = 0 and the starting point of the second floating bar for Array1 and Array2 is x = 7. Putting that all together, you arrive at the x-coordinates for the first four points in the floating_bars array, [0 0; 0 1.5; 17 0; 17 1.5]. The y-coordinates in this array only serve to distinguish Array1, Array2, and so on from each other.
Code:
floating_bars=[0 0; 0 1.5; 17 0; 17 1.5; 20 6; 20 7.5]; % Each row is the [x,y] coordinate pair of the starting point for the floating bar
L=[6, 6, 43, 43, 40, 40]; % Length of each consecutive bar
thickness = 0.75;
figure;
for i=1:size(floating_bars,1)
curr_thickness = 0;
% It is aesthetically pleasing to have thicker bars, this makes the plot look for like the grouped horizontal bar graph that you want
while (curr_thickness < thickness)
% Each bar group has two bars; set the first to be red, the second to be blue (i.e., even index means red bar, odd index means blue bar)
if mod(i, 2)
plot([floating_bars(i,1), floating_bars(i,1)+L(i)], [floating_bars(i,2) + curr_thickness, floating_bars(i,2) + curr_thickness], 'r')
else
plot([floating_bars(i,1), floating_bars(i,1)+L(i)], [floating_bars(i,2) + curr_thickness, floating_bars(i,2) + curr_thickness], 'b')
end
curr_thickness = curr_thickness + 0.05;
hold on % Make sure that plotting the current floating bar does not overwrite previous float bars that have already been plotted
end
end
ylim([ -10 30]) % Set the y-axis limits so that you can see more clearly the floating bars that would have rested right on the x-axis (y = 0)
Output:
How Do I Do This With the barh Function?
The short answer is that you'd have to modify the function manually. Someone has already done this with one of the bar graph plotting functions provided by MATLAB, bar3. The logic implemented in this modified bar3 function can be re-applied for your purposes if you read their barNew.m function and tweak it a bit. If you'd like a pointer as to where to start, I'd suggest looking at how they specify z-axis minimum and maximums for their floating bars on the plot, and apply that same logic to specify x-axis minimum and maximums for your floating bars in your 2D case.
I hope this helps, happy coding! :)

Answer 2

I explain here my approach to generate these type of graphs. Not sure if it is the best but it works and there is no need to do anything manually. I came up with this solution based on the following Vladislav Martin's explained fact: "The y-coordinates in this array only serve to distinguish Array1, Array2, and so on from each other".
My original arrays are:
Array4=[Nan....;20;21;22;23;24;..........60]
Array3=[Nan....;20;21;22;23;24;..........60]
Array2=[0;1;2;3;4;5;6;Nan;Nan;Nan;Nan;17;18;.....60]
Array1=[0;1;2;3;4;5;6;Nan;Nan;Nan;Nan;17;18;.....60]
x={'0m';'1m';'2m';'3m';'4m';....'60m'}
The values contained in these arrays make reference to the x-axis on the graph. In order to make the things more simple and to avoid having to code a function to determine the length for each discontinuity in the arrays, I replace these values for y-axis position values. Basically I give to Array1 y-axis position values of 0 and to Array2 0+0.02=0.02. To Array3 I give y-axis position values of 0.5 and to Array4 0.5+0.02=0.52. In this way, Array2 will be plotted on the graph closer to Array1 which will form the first group and Array4 closer to Array3 which will form the second group.
Datatable=table(Array1,Array2,Array3,Array4);
cont1=0;
cont2=0.02;
for col=1:2:size(Datatable,2)
col2=col+1;
for row=1:size(Datatable,1)
if isnan(Datatable{row,col})==0 % For first array in the group: If the value is not nan, I replace it for the corresponnding cont1 value
Datatable{row,col}=cont1;
end
if isnan(Datatable{row,col2})==0 % For second array in the group: If the value is not nan, I replace it for the corresponnding cont2 value
Datatable{row,col2}=cont2;
end
end
cont1=cont1+0.5;
cont2=cont2+0.5;
end
The result of the above code will be a table like the following:
And now I plot the Arrays using 2D floating lines:
figure
for array=1:2:size(Datatable,2)
FirstPair=cell2mat(table2cell(Datatable(:,array)));
SecondPair=cell2mat(table2cell(Datatable(:,array+1)));
hold on
plot(1:numel(x),FirstPair,'r','Linewidth',6)
plot(1:numel(x),SecondPair,'b','Linewidth',6)
hold off
end
set(gca,'xticklabel',x)
And this will generate the following graph: