Contourm, geoshow, and layering issues (R2012b) change

I'm having some problems with contourm and geoshow.

This code produces the intended output, which is a contour map overlaid on top of a map of North America.

if true
  %Generate some peak data
  lats = 35:54;
  lons = -89:-70;
  mval = peaks(20);
  %make the world map
  H1 = worldmap([25 55],[-90,-60]);
  setm(gca,'mapprojection','mercator')%,'meridianlabel','off');
  coast = load('coast');
  states = shaperead('usastatehi', 'UseGeoCoords', true);
  geoshow(coast.lat,coast.long);
  %geoshow(coast.lat,coast.long,'DisplayType', 'polygon', 'FaceColor', [.45 .60 .30],'edgecolor','black')
  %Plot the contours of the data
  contourm(lats,lons,mval,'linewidth',2);
end

However, if change to the uncommented geoshow line, which fills in the coastline data to make the land green, the land mass appears to be plotted over the contour plots:

if true
  %Generate some peak data
  lats = 35:54;
  lons = -89:-70;
  mval = peaks(20);
  %make the world map
  H1 = worldmap([25 55],[-90,-60]);
  setm(gca,'mapprojection','mercator')%,'meridianlabel','off');
  coast = load('coast');
  states = shaperead('usastatehi', 'UseGeoCoords', true);
  %geoshow(coast.lat,coast.long);
  geoshow(coast.lat,coast.long,'DisplayType', 'polygon', 'FaceColor', [.45 .60 .30],'edgecolor','black')
  %Plot the contours of the data
  contourm(lats,lons,mval,'linewidth',2);
end

I am running version 2012b on a windows 7 machine. When I try this in the linux system (R2012a), the second set of code produces the expected output. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

[Rob Comer]

The platform-specific nature of this problem makes me think about graphics rendering. I can reproduce the problem in R2013a on my Macintosh when, as in your script, I allow MATLAB to choose the default renderer. In this case that is painters:

>> get(gcf,'Renderer')

ans =

painters

The behavior is the same with opengl. But when I explicitly set the renderer to zbuffer, the plot looks correct:

>> set(gcf,'Renderer','zbuffer')