How do I set the width of the axes in a polar plot in MATLAB 7.7 (R2008b)?

I have created a polar plot in MATLAB using the POLAR function and now I am trying to set the 'LineWidth' property of the axes but it is not working.

Reproduction steps:

t = 0:.01:2*pi;

polar(t,sin(2*t).*cos(2*t),'--r')

set(gca,'LineWidth',3)

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

Polar plots in MATLAB are different from plots on cartesian axes. In order to change the width of the axes in a polar plot, please use the FINDALL command to find the line objects in the figure. Then set the 'LineWidth' of each line object individually in a FOR-loop as shown in the example below:

t = 0:.01:2*pi;

h = polar(t,sin(2*t).*cos(2*t),'--r');

hlines = findall(gcf,'Type','line');

for i = 1:length(hlines)

    set(hlines(i),'LineWidth',3);

end

Note that the code above will also set the 'LineWidth' property of the plotted line to 3. To specify a different value, you can do one of the following:

1) Reset the 'LineWidth' property of the plotted line after the FOR loop. This will overwrite the value previously set in the FOR loop. For example, add the following line after the FOR loop:

set(h,'LineWidth',1); %sets the 'LineWidth' property of the plotted line only

OR

2) Include an IF statement in the FOR loop to check that the handle being changed is not the handle of the plotted line. For example, replace the FOR loop in the code above by the following lines:

for i = 1:length(hlines)

      if hlines(i) ~= h

          set(hlines(i),'LineWidth',3);

      end

end