Signal Processing Toolbox™

fvtool - Open Filter Visualization Tool

Syntax

fvtool(b,a) fvtool(b₁,a₁,b₂,a₂,...b_n,a_n) fvtool(Hd₁,Hd₂,...) h = fvtool(...)

Description

fvtool(b,a) opens FVTool and computes the magnitude response of the digital filter defined with numerator, b and denominator, a. Using FVTool you can display the phase response, group delay, impulse response, step response, pole-zero plot, and coefficients of the filter. You can export the displayed response to a file with File > Export.

fvtool(b₁,a₁,b₂,a₂,...b_n,a_n) opens FVTool and computes the magnitude responses of multiple filters defined with numerators, b₁...b_nand denominators, a₁...a_n.

fvtool(Hd₁,Hd₂,...) opens FVTool and computes the magnitude responses of the filters in the dfilt objects Hd1, Hd2, etc. If you have the Filter Design Toolbox™ product installed, you can also use fvtool(H₁,H₂,...) to analyze quantized filter objects (dfilt with arithmetic set to 'single' or 'fixed'), multirate filter (mfilt) objects, and adaptive filter (adaptfilt) objects.

h = fvtool(...) returns a figure handle h. You can use this handle to interact with FVTool from the command line. See Controlling FVTool from the MATLAB^® Command Line below.

FVTool has two toolbars.

An extended version of the MATLAB^® plot editing toolbar. The following table shows the toolbar icons specific to FVTool.

Icon	Description
	Restore default view. This view displays buffer regions around the data and shows only significant data. To see the response using standard MATLAB plotting, which shows all data values, use View > Full View.
	Toggle legend
	Toggle grid
	Link to FDATool (appears only if FVTool was started from FDATool)
	Toggle Add mode/Replace mode (appears only if FVTool was launched from FDATool)

Analysis toolbar with the following icons

	Magnitude response of the current filter. See `freqz` and `zerophase` for more information. To see the zero-phase response, right-click the y-axis label of the Magnitude plot and select Zero-phase from the context menu.
	Phase response of the current filter. See `phasez` for more information.
	Superimposes the magnitude response and the phase response of the current filter. See `freqz` for more information.
	Shows the group delay of the current filter. Group delay is the average delay of the filter as a function of frequency. See `grpdelay` for more information.
	Shows the phase delay of the current filter. Phase delay is the time delay the filter imposes on each component of the input signal. See `phasedelay` for more information.
	Impulse response of the current filter. The impulse response is the response of the filter to a impulse input. See `impz` for more information.
	Step response of the current filter. The step response is the response of the filter to a step input. See `stepz` for more information.
	Pole-zero plot, which shows the pole and zero locations of the current filter on the z-plane. See `zplane` for more information.
	Filter coefficients of the current filter, which depend on the filter structure (e.g., direct-form, lattice, etc.) in a text box. For SOS filters, each section is displayed as a separate filter.
	Detailed filter information.

Linking to FDATool

In fdatool, selecting View > Filter Visualization Tool or the Full View Analysis toolbar button when an analysis is displayed starts FVTool for the current filter. You can synchronize FDATool and FVTool with the FDAToolLink toolbar button . Any changes made to the filter in FDATool are immediately reflected in FVTool.

Two FDATool link modes are provided via the Set Link Mode toolbar button:

Replace — removes the filter currently displayed in FVTool and inserts the new filter.
Add — retains the filter currently displayed in FVTool and adds the new filter to the display.

Modifying the Axes

You can change the x- or y-axis units by right-clicking the mouse on the axis label or by right-clicking on the plot and selecting Analysis Parameters. Available options for the axes units are as follows.

Plot

X-Axis Units

Y-Axis Units

Magnitude

Normalized Frequency

Linear Frequency

Magnitude

Magnitude(dB)

Magnitude squared

Zero-Phase

Phase

Normalized Frequency

Linear Frequency

Phase

Continuous Phase

Degrees

Radians

Magnitude and Phase

Normalized Frequency

Linear Frequency

(y-axis on left side)

Magnitude

Magnitude(dB)

Magnitude squared

Zero-Phase

(y-axis on right side)

Phase

Continuous Phase

Degrees

Radians

Group Delay

Normalized Frequency

Linear Frequency

Samples

Time

Phase Delay

Normalized Frequency

Linear Frequency

Degrees

Radians

Impulse Response

Samples

Time

Amplitude

Step Response

Samples

Time

Amplitude

Pole-Zero

Real Part

Imaginary Part

Modifying the Plot

You can use any of the plot editing toolbar buttons to change the properties of your plot.

Analysis Parameters are parameters that apply to the displayed analyses. To display them, right-click in the plot area and select Analysis Parameters from the menu. (Note that you can access the menu only if the Edit Plot button is inactive.) The following analysis parameters are displayed. (If more than one response is displayed, parameters applicable to each plot are displayed.) Not all of these analysis fields are displayed for all types of plots:

Normalized Frequency — if checked, frequency is normalized between 0 and 1, or if not checked, frequency is in Hz
Frequency Scale — y-axis scale (Linear or Log)
Frequency Range — range of the frequency axis or Specify freq. vector
Number of Points — number of samples used to compute the response
Frequency Vector — vector to use for plotting, if Specify freq. vector is selected in Frequency Range.
Magnitude Display — y-axis units (Magnitude, Magnitude (dB), Magnitude squared, or Zero-Phase)
Phase Units — y-axis units (Degrees or Radians)
Phase Display — type of phase plot (Phase or Continuous Phase)
Group Delay Units — y-axis units (Samples or Time)
Specify Length — length type of impulse or step response (Default or Specified)
Length — number of points to use for the impulse or step response

In addition to the above analysis parameters, you can change the plot type for Impulse and Step Response plots by right-clicking and selecting Line with Marker, Stem or Line from the context menu. You can change the x-axis units by right-clicking the x-axis label and selecting Samples or Time.

To save the displayed parameters as the default values to use when FDATool or FVTool is opened, click Save as default.

To restore the default values, click Restore original defaults.

Data Markers display information about a particular point in the plot. See Using Data Markers for more information.

When FVTool is started from FDATool, you can use Specification Masks to display filter specifications on a Magnitude plot. You can also draw your own specification masks. See Analyzing the Filter for more information.

Note To use View > Passband zoom, your filter must have been designed using fdesign or FDATool. Passband zoom is not provided for cascaded integrator-comb (CIC) filters because CICs do not have conventional passbands.

Overlaying a Response

You can overlay a second response on the plot by selecting Analysis > Overlay Analysis and selecting an available response. A second y-axis is added to the right side of the response plot. The Analysis Parameters dialog box shows parameters for the x-axis and both y-axes. See Example 2 for a sample Analysis Parameters dialog box.

Controlling FVTool from the MATLAB^® Command Line

After you obtain the handle for FVTool, you can control some aspects of FVTool from the command line. In addition to the standard Handle Graphics^® properties (see Handle Graphics in the MATLAB documentation), FVTool has the following properties:

'Filters' — returns a cell array of the filters in FVTool.

'Analysis' — displays the specified type of analysis plot. The following table lists the analyses and corresponding analysis strings. Note that the only analyses that use filter internals are magnitude response estimate and round-off noise power, which are available only with the Filter Design Toolbox product.

Analysis Type	Analysis String
Magnitude plot	`'magnitude'`
Phase plot	`'phase'`
Magnitude and phase plot	`freq'
Group delay plot	`'grpdelay'`
Phase delay plot	`phasedelay'
Impulse response plot	`'impulse'`
Step response plot	`'step'`
Pole-zero plot	`'polezero'`
Filter coefficients	`'coefficients'`
Filter information	`'info'`
Magnitude response estimate (available only with the Filter Design Toolbox product, see `freqrespest` for more information)	`'magestimate'`
Round-off noise power (available only with the Filter Design Toolbox product, see `noisepsd` for more information)	`'noisepower'`

'Grid' — controls whether the grid is 'on' or 'off'
'Legend' — controls whether the legend is 'on' or 'off'
'Fs' — controls the sampling frequency of filters in FVTool. The sampling frequency vector must be of the same length as the number of filters or a scalar value. If it is a vector, each value is applied to its corresponding filter. If it is a scalar, the same value is applied to all filters.
SosViewSettings — (This option is available only if you have the Filter Design Toolbox product.) For second-order sections filters, this controls how the filter is displayed. The SOSViewSettings property contains an object so you must use this syntax to set it: set(h.SOSViewSettings,'View',viewtype), where viewtype is one of the following:
- 'Complete' — Displays the complete response of the overall filter
- 'Individual' — Displays the response of each section separately
- 'Cumulative' — Displays the response for each section accumulated with each prior section. If your filter has three sections, the first plot shows section one, the second plot shows the accumulation of sections one and two, and the third plot show the accumulation of all three sections.
  You can also define whether to use SecondaryScaling, which determines where the sections should be split. The secondary scaling points are the scaling locations between the recursive and the nonrecursive parts of the section. The default value is false, which does not use secondary scaling. To turn on secondary scaling, use this syntax: set(h.SOSViewSettings,'View','Cumulative',true)
- 'UserDefined' — Allows you to define which sections to display and the order in which to display them. Enter a cell array where each section is represented by its index. If you enter one index, only that section is plotted. If you enter a range of indices, the combined response of that range of sections is plotted. For example, if your filter has four sections, entering {1:4} plots the combined response for all four sections, and entering {1,2,3,4} plots the response for each section individually.

Note You can change other properties of FVTool from the command line using the set function. Use get(h) to view property tags and current property settings.

You can use the following methods with the FVTool handle.

addfilter(h,filtobj) adds a new filter to FVTool. The new filter, filtobj, must be a dfilt filter object. You can specify the sampling frequency of the new filter with addfilter(h,filtobj,'Fs',10).

setfilter(h,filtobj) replaces the filter in FVTool with the filter specified in filtobj. You can set the sampling frequency as described above.

deletefilter(h, index) deletes the filter at the FVTool cell array index location.

legend(h,str1,str2,...) creates a legend in FVTool by associating str1 with filter 1, str2 with filter 2, etc. See legend in the MATLAB documentation for information.

For more information on using FVTool from the command line, see the demo fvtooldemo.

Examples

Example 1

Display the magnitude response of an elliptic filter, starting FVTool from the command line:

[b,a]=ellip(6,3,50,300/500);
fvtool(b,a);

Example 2

Display and analyze multiple FIR filters, starting FVTool from the command line. Then, display the associated analysis parameters for the magnitude:

b1 = firpm(20,[0 0.4 0.5 1],[1 1 0 0]); 
b2 = firpm(40,[0 0.4 0.5 1],[1 1 0 0]); 
fvtool(b1,1,b2,1);

Image of the analysis parameters for this example

Example 3

Create a lowpass, equiripple filter of order 20 in FDATool and display it in FVTool.

fdatool          % Start FDATool

Set these parameters in fdatool:

Parameter	Setting
`Response Type`	`Lowpass`
`Design Method`	`FIR Equiripple`
`Filter Order`	`Specify order: 20`
`Density factor`	`16`
`Frequency specifications -- units`	`Normalized (0 to 1)`
`Wpass`	`0.4`
`Wstop`	`0.5`
`Magnitude specifications -- Wpass and Wstop`	`1`

and then click the Design Filter button.

Click the Full View Analysis button to start FVTool.

Example 4

Create an elliptic filter and use some of FVTool's figure handle commands:

[b,a]=ellip(6,3,50,300/500);
h = fvtool(b,a);    % Create handle, h and start FVTool
                    % with magnitude plot

set(h,'Analysis','phase')   % Change display to phase plot

set(h,'Legend','on')         % Turn legend on
legend(h,'Phase plot')       % Add legend text

get(h)               % View all properties
                     % FVTool-specific properties are
                     %  at the end of this list.

                 AlphaMap: [1x64 double]
          CloseRequestFcn: 'closereq'
                    Color: [0.8314 0.8157 0.7843]
                 ColorMap: [64x3 double]
              CurrentAxes: 208.0084
         CurrentCharacter: ''
            CurrentObject: []
             CurrentPoint: [0 0]
             DockControls: 'on'
             DoubleBuffer: 'on'
                 FileName: ''
              FixedColors: [11x3 double]
            IntegerHandle: 'on'
           InvertHardcopy: 'on'
              KeyPressFcn: ''
                  MenuBar: 'none'
              MinColormap: 64
                    Name: 'Filter Visualization Tool - Phase Response'
                 NextPlot: 'new'
              NumberTitle: 'on'
               PaperUnits: 'inches'
         PaperOrientation: 'portrait'
            PaperPosition: [0.2500 2.5000 8 6]
        PaperPositionMode: 'manual'
                PaperSize: [8.5000 11]
                PaperType: 'usletter'
                  Pointer: 'arrow'
        PointerShapeCData: [16x16 double]
      PointerShapeHotSpot: [1 1]
                 Position: [360 292 560 345]
                 Renderer: 'painters'
             RendererMode: 'auto'
                   Resize: 'on'
                ResizeFcn: ''
            SelectionType: 'normal'
                  Toolbar: 'auto'
                    Units: 'pixels'
      WindowButtonDownFcn: ''
    WindowButtonMotionFcn: ''
        WindowButtonUpFcn: ''
              WindowStyle: 'normal'
             BeingDeleted: 'off'
            ButtonDownFcn: ''
                 Children: [15x1 double]
                 Clipping: 'on'
                CreateFcn: ''
                DeleteFcn: ''
               BusyAction: 'queue'
         HandleVisibility: 'on'
                  HitTest: 'on'
            Interruptible: 'on'
                   Parent: 0
                 Selected: 'off'
       SelectionHighlight: 'on'
                      Tag: 'filtervisualizationtool'
            UIContextMenu: []
                 UserData: []
                  Visible: 'on'
          AnalysisToolbar: 'on'
            FigureToolbar: 'on'
                  Filters: {[1x1 dfilt.df2t]}
                     Grid: 'on'
                   Legend: 'on'
               DesignMask: 'off'
                       Fs: 1
          SOSViewSettings: [1x1 dspopts.sosview]
                 Analysis: 'phase'
        OverlayedAnalysis: ''
            ShowReference: 'on'
            PolyphaseView: 'off'
      NormalizedFrequency: 'on'
           FrequencyScale: 'Linear'
           FrequencyRange: '[0, pi)'
           NumberofPoints: 8192
          FrequencyVector: [1x256 double]
               PhaseUnits: 'Radians'
             PhaseDisplay: 'Phase'

fvtool - Open Filter Visualization Tool

Syntax

Description

Linking to FDATool

Modifying the Axes

Modifying the Plot

Overlaying a Response

Controlling FVTool from the MATLAB® Command Line

Examples

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

See Also

Controlling FVTool from the MATLAB^® Command Line