Set plot (axes) view "box" without affecting limits

Question

I have a 2D plot with many data elements on it covering a extensive area. Although all the data is necessary, I am usually interested on a small element of the plot. I would like to programmatically focus the view on that element of interest, while allowing to use the zoom tool ((-) in the GUI) to fastly go back to a wider perspective.

It is easy to use set(gca, 'xlim', [limitsXOfSmallElement]) and set(gca, 'ylim', [limitsYOfSmallElement]) to set axis limits so that the small element is in focus, but this makes impossible to use the GUI (-) zoom tool to go back to the general view without manually resetting back axis limits to original values.

My intuition is that this could be solved by controlling camera properties (CameraPosition, CameraTarget and/or CameraViewAngle), but when I apply them, posterior uses of the GUI zoom tool have weird effects on the axis, as changing its position and size on the figure.

Is there a good method for setting the fragment of the 2D canvas that is displayed in the axis?

Answer 1

Consider the following example:

function example_zoom
    %# some plot
    plot(1:10)
    hAx = gca;

    %# save original axis limits
    setappdata(hAx, 'limits',get(gca,{'XLim','YLim'}))

    %# create custom toolbar button
    [X,map] = imread(fullfile(toolboxdir('matlab'),'icons','view_zoom_out.gif'));
    icon = ind2rgb(X,map);
    uipushtool('CData',icon, 'ClickedCallback',{@click_cb,hAx});

    %# zoom
    uiwait(msgbox('Zooming now, click button to reset', 'modal'))
    set(gca, 'XLim',[3 7], 'YLim',[2 9])
    %zoom on
end

function click_cb(o,e, hAx)
    %# restore original axis limits
    limits = getappdata(hAx, 'limits');
    set(hAx, 'XLim',limits{1}, 'YLim',limits{2})
end

The idea is to create your own toolbar button that restores the axis limits to their original values.