How is the MarkerSize of a 'Circle' marker defined

Hi,

I'm ploting a 'Circle' marker using the 'plot' command. I'm setting the marker size using 'MarkerSize' property. e.g.:

plot(x,y,'or','MarkerSize',10);

Figure 'Units' are 'pixels'.

My question is what does the number 10 means (in pixles)? I played with it and it is not the radius or diameter in pixels. Any suggestions?

Thanks, Moran

Answer 1

[Daniel Shub]

The circle marker size appears to be the number of points in the diameter. For the other markers, it is not so clear. You can create a square axis with x and y limits of -1 to 1 that is scale inches high and wide

scale = 4;
set(gca, 'Units', 'Inches')
set(gca, 'Position', scale*[0.25, 0.25, 1, 1])
set(gca, 'YTickLabel', [])
set(gca, 'XTickLabel', [])
axis([-1, 1, -1, 1])
axis square
box on
hold on

and then plot all the symbols to be scale*72 units big. I chose 72 since there are 72 points in an inch.

plot(0 , 0, '.', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, 'o', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, 'x', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, '+', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, '*', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, 's', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, 'd', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, 'v', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, '^', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, '<', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, '>', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, 'p', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);
plot(0 , 0, 'h', 'MarkerSize', scale*72);

[Moran Shochat]

So the MarkerSize is always in points? even if the the figure 'Units' property is set differently by:

 set(gca, 'Units', 'Inches')*)

[Jan]

@Moran: A small experiment on your computer will answer this question already. Why asking in the forum, what can be investigated locally?

[Daniel Shub]

@Moran you need to watch your terminology. I set the units of the AXIS and not the FIGURE. Neither of which are the OBJECT. Some OBJECTs have a UNITS property, and others do not. In the case of OBJECTs of type LINE, which markers are, there is no UNITS property.

[Moran Shochat]

Thank you Daniel, that was helpful.