How to apply different colormaps in different subplots?

Question

I'm doing more or less the following:

figure
for ii=1:4
    subplot(2,2,ii)
    imshow(image(ii))
    hcb = colorbar;

    switch ii
        case 1
            colormap(myMap)
            set(hcb,'YTickLabel', .. )
            set(hcb,'YTick', .. )
        case 2
            colormap(myMap)
            set(hcb,'YTickLabel', .. )
            set(hcb,'YTick', .. )
        case 3
            colormap(myMap)
            set(hcb,'YTickLabel', .. )
            set(hcb,'YTick', .. )
        case 4
            colormap(aDifferentMap)
            set(hcb,'YTickLabel', .. )
            set(hcb,'YTick', .. )
    end
end

What I'm facing is that calling colormap(aDifferentMap) for the fourth plot (ii=4), screws things up for the previous three plots: in my final figure all colorbars have aDifferentMap colormap, with also some problems to the YTick attribute.

If I comment out colormap(aDifferentMap) in case 4, it all works well (except for the fourth subplot, which will have a wrong colormap and no Ytickes whatsoever).

How can I deal with this? How can I set properties of subplot(2,2,4) without influencing subplots 1:3?

Ir

Answer 1

For Matlab 2014a and before applies the answer of Phil Goddard and you need to use e.g. freezeColors from FileExchange.

---

In Matlab 2014b the problem got solved with the update of the graphics engine to version HG-2. Now the colormap affects all axes in the figure, unless you set an axes colormap separately. (from doc)

figure
ax1 = subplot(2,1,1);
surf(peaks)
colormap(ax1,spring)

ax2 = subplot(2,1,2);
surf(peaks)
colormap(ax2,winter)

Bivens

After a quick check in meta, I found this is the answer I should accept as it is more complete and probably more useful for future readers. However, being on R2011a, I found my solution through Phil Goddard's link. Namely I used both freezeColors and cbfreeze tools, as suggested by freezeColors author. – Ir

It would be absolutely fine to accept Phil's answer, as he solved your problem first. I just felt his answer his answer wasn't complete, especially because its recent changes in validity. – Bivens

Answer 2

Colormap is a property of the figure, not the axes, so changing it for a subplot changes it for all subplots.

Have a look at Using multiple colormaps in a single figure for an example of a solution.

Alf

Answer 3

You can use ind2rgb if you just want to show images with different colormaps in a figure:

load flujet;
subplot(221); image(ind2rgb(X, gray(63)));
subplot(222); image(ind2rgb(X, jet(63)));
subplot(223); image(ind2rgb(X, hot(63)));
subplot(224); image(ind2rgb(X, copper(63)));

However, different colorbars still can't be shown in earlier versions of MATLAB.

Puttee