Why does saving and loading MAT-Files take so long in MATLAB R2014b?

Why does saving and loading MAT-Files take so long in MATLAB R2014b?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

In R2014b and later, if you save a graphics object in a MAT-file, MATLAB stores all the data for that object. When you load the MAT-file, MATLAB regenerates the objects. If the graphics object contains a lot of data, then the file might be large. Saving or loading large files can be slow. 

 

In previous releases, if you save a graphics object to a MAT-file, MATLAB stores the object as a double. Storing a double does not require a large file. However, MATLAB cannot regenerate the object when you load the file.