cline

Draw a colored line in 2D or 3D

You are now following this Submission

There are several files on the FEX which deal with the plotting of colored lines, but they all have some drawbacks. I wrote a little file, which extends the scope of the submission by Kun Liu (s. below, hoping to deliver a general purpose file, which should work for most purposes.

SYNTAX
======
h = cline(x, y [, z, cdata])

INPUT
=====
x: vector with x-values
y: vector with y-values
z (opt.): vector with z-values
cdata (opt.): vector with color-data

2 input arguments => cdata = y; z=0
3 input arguments => cdata = z
4 i.a. & z = [] => cdata = y; z=0

OUPUT
=====
h: Handle to line (i.e. patch-object !!!)

Examples
========
t = 2*pi:.1:8*pi;

cline(sqrt(t).*sin(t), sqrt(t).*cos(t));
cline(sqrt(t).*sin(t), sqrt(t).*cos(t), t);
cline(sqrt(t).*sin(t), sqrt(t).*cos(t), t, rand(size(t))); view(3)
cline(sqrt(t).*sin(t), sqrt(t).*cos(t), [], rand(size(t))); view(3)

OK, hope you find this file useful

Sebastian

Cite As

Sebastian Hölz (2026). cline (https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/14677-cline), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

Acknowledgements

Inspired by: Linear 2D Plot with Rainbow Color

Inspired: Perceptually improved colormaps

General Information

MATLAB Release Compatibility

  • Compatible with any release

Platform Compatibility

  • Windows
  • macOS
  • Linux
Version Published Release Notes Action
1.0.0.0