How to improve speed when printing multiple images inside a for loop

My code generates a figure on each iteration of a for loop, which is printed to a png file each time. Is there a way to speed up this process by letting Matlab continue with the loop while the printing is ongoing? (like a fork-join kind of flow). Any help will be welcome. Example code:

 for k=1:10
    aux = randn(1e3);
    fh = figure('visible','off'); imagesc(aux);
    print(fh,'-dpng','-r0','./temp.png'); close(fh)
 end

[Rik]

You are overwriting the image on each loop iteration. And have you tried parfor?

[Mario A]

The actual code within the for loop (not the example I wrote above) is not compatible with parfor (neither it overwrites the image each time).

Answer 1

[Mario A]

I just found a solution form the parallel computing toolbox, which is the use of parfeval function. This function allows an asynchronous running of another function. The original example is optimized by writing

 for k=1:10
    aux = randn(1e3);
    fh = figure('visible','off'); imagesc(aux);
    parfeval(@print,0,fh,'-dpng','-r0','./temp.png'); close(fh)
 end

Answer 2

[Rik]

It is also possible print is inherently slower than it could be, in which case the screencapture FEX submission by Yair Altman might result in a speed increase. You can even use that parfeval in combination with this.