phymhan/matlab-axis-label-alignment

Align axis labels nicely in parallel with axes in MATLAB (3-D) plots.
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Updated 23 Dec 2017

Editor's Note: This file was selected as MATLAB Central Pick of the Week

This is a simple MATLAB function for axis label alignment. It still works when Projection mode is Perspective or when DataAspectRatio is not [1 1 1].
## Functions
- `align_axislabel`: it rotates $x$, $y$ and $z$ labels to the direction of their corresponding axes and moves the labels to a proper distance from the axes;
- `align_axislabel_log`: supports log-scale in $z$ axis;
- `axislabel_rotation`: it performs rotation only;
- `axislabel_rotation_angle`: it computes the angles of $x$, $y$ and $z$ labels to be rotated properly (without performing the actual rotation);
- `axislabel_translation`: it moves axis labels to a proper distance from the axes;
- `axislabel_translation_slider`: a GUI slider for setting parameters `AXISALIGN_TRANS_A` and `AXISALIGN_TRANS_B`.
## Common usage
Label alignment plus GUI slider:
```
z = peaks;
figure('color', [1 1 1])
surf(z);
set(gca, 'dataaspectratio', [1 1 0.5], 'projection', 'perspective', 'box', 'on')
xlabel('This is an x label', 'fontsize', 16, 'fontweight', 'bold', 'color', [1 0 0])
ylabel('This is a y label', 'fontsize', 16, 'fontweight', 'bold', 'color', [0 0 0])
zlabel('This is a z label', 'fontsize', 16, 'fontweight', 'bold', 'color', [0 0 1])

% Add the following after you plot your figures
h = rotate3d;
set(h, 'ActionPreCallback', 'set(gcf,''windowbuttonmotionfcn'',@align_axislabel)')
set(h, 'ActionPostCallback', 'set(gcf,''windowbuttonmotionfcn'','''')')
set(gcf, 'ResizeFcn', @align_axislabel)
align_axislabel([], gca)
axislabel_translation_slider;

```

See `demo.m` for more information.

Cite As

Ligong Han (2024). phymhan/matlab-axis-label-alignment (https://github.com/phymhan/matlab-axis-label-alignment), GitHub. Retrieved .

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R2016a
Compatible with any release
Platform Compatibility
Windows macOS Linux
Acknowledgements

Inspired by: Align axes labels in 3D plot

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Version Published Release Notes
1.7.0.0

- updates examples

1.6.0.0

- Adds GUI slider for parameter setting (controlling translation behaviour)

1.5.0.0

- Adds check for class of 'ax' in align_axislabel.m
- Adds a new example where axis labels are updated/aligned as you rotate the plot simultaneously
- Adds example for subplots
- Changes align_axislabel.m back to align_axislabels.m, sorry for the confusion
- Fixes typos in examples
- Log scale on z axis

1.4.0.0

- Revised for R2014b
- Adds a trans_mode option

1.3.0.0

- Modified the method to move labels to avoid potential overlap;
- Modified parameters in axis_translation.

1.2.0.0

- Modified the direction of axis label translation

1.1.0.0

- Added a function for translation
- Updated descriptions

1.0.0.0

To view or report issues in this GitHub add-on, visit the GitHub Repository.
To view or report issues in this GitHub add-on, visit the GitHub Repository.