Creating a simple contour plot / Heat map

I have edited this question to try to make it more clear:

As an example, I have the following arrays:

a =  
     1     2     3
     1     2     3

b =  
     2     3     4
     5     6     7

c =  
     3     4     5
     6     7     8

contour(a,b,c) will give me something like this:

I want it to look like this though:

How can I fix this?

PS: Additional Confusion. On the first picture, why does the line go to put a value at (1.5,2.5)? I didnt list an (a,b) of those values together..

[José-Luis]

Are you trying to get isotherms?

[Andrew Reibold]

If I call the arrays X, Y and Value instead, I just want to make a 'heat map' of Value where each value is at the corresponding 2d location (X,Y)

In the example above, I want the value 70 plotted at (0,10). I want the value 65 plotted at (.01,8) and so on. I want the values displayed via color. Planning for a colorbar on the side.

Answer 1

[Kelly Kearney]

pcolor(a,b,c);
shading interp;
colorbar;

The contour function plots contour lines, i.e. lines of constant value. Your function is constant across the horizontal, hence the horizontal contour lines. The contourf function would get you a bit closer to what you want, in that it shades between contour lines. But pcolor is best for showing interpolated values between your data points.

[Andrew Reibold]

Thanks Kelly, pretty much exactly what I was trying to do.