Movie function via getframe(gcf) displays multi-axis figure incorrectly

I have a problem where the movie() function creates an extra set of axes that I do not want around the outside of my figure, where no axes previously existed. More problematically, these axes push relevant info outside of the movie frame. Therefore I can't save a useful Avi file for presentations.

The code I'm using (minus irrelevant pieces) is:

for LOOP_PARAM=1:i_frame

%%%Data generating code%%%

%(define fw,fh,axh,axw etc... all my axis and figure sizes)
% Setup overall figure
f = figure;
set(f,'Units','inches','Position',[0 0 fw fh]);
set(f,'PaperPosition',[0 0 fw fh],'PaperSize',[fw fh]);
set(f,'Color','w','InvertHardcopy','off');
set(f,'Resize','off');%,'Toolbar','none');
set(f,'defaultAxesFontSize',16);%,'defaultaxesfontname','cmuserif');
% Setup axes within figure "f"
ax(1) = axes('Units',units,'position',[axl axb+0.5*axh+axvs axw2 axh]);
ax(2) = axes('Units',units,'position',[axl+1*(axw2+axhs) axb+0.5*axh+axvs axw1 axh]);
ax(3) = axes('Units',units,'position',[axl+1*(axw2+axhs) axb axw1 0.5*axh]);

%%%Section plotting Data%%%

%Capture movie frame
my_mov(LOOP_PARAM) = getframe(gcf);

end % frameloop

I can "fix" matlap playback of the movie if I play it via the following code from Matlab website, but that doesn't help with the key goal of getting this into an avi file I can use for presentations, as the cdata still has the axis around the entirety of figure f (that I don't want). I should note that I don't really know why this code works... axis are automatically 150 pixels wide perhaps?

% use 1st frame to get dimensions
[h, w, p] = size(my_mov(1).cdata);
hf = figure; 
% resize figure based on frame's w x h, and place at (150, 150)
set(hf,'Position', [150 150 w h]);
axis off
% Place frames at bottom left
movie(hf,my_mov,1,0.5,[0 0 0 0]);

So, any thoughts on how I can get a movie file which just shows the three axes inside the main figure, which I can then save via mov2avi?

Many thanks for any help

PS. Running MatlabR2012b on MacOSX

Answer 1

[Geoff Hayes]

Jonathan - have you verified that the avi output from movie2avi does in fact produce a video where the extra axes appears?

Check the documentation for movie and in particular the statement

movie(M) plays the movie in matrix M once, using the current axes as the default target. If you want to play the movie in the figure instead of the axes, specify the figure handle (or gcf) as the first argument: movie(figure_handle,...). M must be an array of movie frames (usually from get frame).

By not providing a figure handle, then the movie is displayed in the current axes, and so you observe the extra set of axes around your frames. In the "fix" piece of code that you got from the MATLAB website

 movie(hf,my_mov,1,0.5,[0 0 0 0]);

the movie is being run in the figure (given by hf) and not within the axes. (And this figure has been sized appropriately given the height and width of the frames.)

I think that your video will be fine (no extra axes) once you write the my_mov array to file using movie2avi and launch it outside of MATLAB.

Note that there is an alternative to this function which writes the frames immediately to file and so you avoid having to manage an array of frames. See VideoWriter for details.

[Jonathan]

Absolutely correct, movie2avi(my_mov, 'filename') worked perfectly. Whoops.

On a related note for anyone who stumbles across this with a Mac system, I used software called Handbrake to compress the resulting avi file to an acceptable size.