How to change the layer order of axes?

I have figure with tiledlayout, e.g. with (2,2) arrangement. The layer order will be tile-1, tile-2, tile-3, tile-4. Tile-4 is the uppermost while tile-1 is the lowermost layer. All 4 tiles have let's say a surf plot on it.

If I switch off clippings for each axes I can enlarge the content of all 4 axes. The enlarged figures, however, are behind each other, only the uppermost layer can be fully visible, all the others are, at least partly, behind other axes. How can I change interactively (I mean when I use the zoom for a specific axes) the layer order of the axes, in order to put the interesting axes to the uppermost layer and be able to fully see the enlarged content of that axes?

hfig=figure(12345);
tt=tiledlayout(2,2);

[X,Y,Z] = peaks(25);
CO(:,:,1) = zeros(25); % red
CO(:,:,2) = ones(25).*linspace(0.5,0.6,25); % green
CO(:,:,3) = ones(25).*linspace(0,1,25); % blue

ti1=nexttile(tt,1);
surf(X,Y,Z,CO);
ti1.Clipping='off';

ti2=nexttile(tt,2);
surf(X,Y,Z,CO);
ti2.Clipping='off';

ti3=nexttile(tt,3);
surf(X,Y,Z,CO);
ti3.Clipping='off';

ti4=nexttile(tt,4);
surf(X,Y,Z,CO);
ti4.Clipping='off';

%% Try to zoom axes!

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/matlab.graphics.axis.axes-properties.html#budumk7_sep_shared-ButtonDownFcn

Set axes ButtonDownFcn callbacks, where the action is uistack(CurrentObject, 'top') . The CurrentObject should be the same as the first parameter passed to the callback function.

Note: uistack does not work for uifigure()

[Csaba]

Thanks a lot, it might put me on the right track. However!

1./ Not the axes (ax) ButtonDownFcn should be set, but the surf (ax.Children) ButtonDownFcn!

2./ It works only if nothing is selected for manipulation. Let's say if zoom is selected, it does not work. So first you have to click on the surf, then select the zoom or pan or whatever and then you can see what you want. I think the zoom callback takes away the callback. There should be other way to click while zoom is selected.

3./ The callback function, however, should set the uistack for axes (CurrentObject.Parent)!

[Walter Roberson]

ButtonDownFcn for the axes should work if you click anywhere on the axes that does not have a (visible) graphics child underneath.

[Csaba]

Yes, that is true. But surf might cover all the axes. I tried to set both the surf (ax.Children) and axes (ax) ButtonDownFcn and it works quite well. So I will accept your answer.

However in this case the callback should be:

ax=gca;

uistack(ax,'top');

[Adam Danz]

Starting in MATLAB R2023a you can use uistack to control the stacking order of ui components in a uifigure. See release notes.

Answer 2

[Matt J]

You can re-order the Children property of the TiledChardLayout,e.g.,

tt.Children=flip(tt.Children)