Change figure view in matlab

Question

Is there some way of using the surf() style data format to create a heat map?

I have a bunch of scattered data of the form z=f(x,y) (so I used TriScatteredInterp to make it work with meshgrid) and I'd like to visualize z with a heat map. surf already does something similar to what I want, except you have to manually rotate the graph so the view is top down looking at the XY plane.

Basically, I'd like something similar to this:

But surf gives you this by default:

Answer 1

Although the answers here already show how to do this with surf, rendering the 3d surface feels a little like overkill...

pcolor creates the required images directly

(with slightly better results -surf has a gap next to the axes)

code

figure(1)
pcolor(peaks)

figure(2)
surf(peaks)
view(2)

results

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pcolor

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surf

Answer 2

Adding to Ben's answer, you can use the view command. view allows you to rotate your plot to whatever camera angle you wish.

In general, you call the command like so:

view(AZ, EL);

AZ is the azimuth or horizontal rotation, while EL is the vertical elevation. These are both in degrees.

In your case, once you plot your surf plot, use view(0, 90); before you go to the next subplot. view(0, 90); is the default 2-D view, and this looks directly overhead.

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By doing this, you avoid having to rotate your plot manually, then using campos to determine what the camera position is at given your plot. view(0, 90); should give you what you need.

Sidenote

Doing view(2); also gives you the default 2D view, which is equal to view(0, 90); as we talked about. By doing view(3);, this gives you the default 3D view as seen in your plots. FWIW, the default azimuth and elevation for a 3D plot is AZ = -37.5, EL = 30, in degrees of course.