How can export my MATLAB figure encoding it in base64 format in MATLAB 7.7 (R2008b)?

I want to encode a figure in MATLAB 7.7 (R2008b) into a text representation to include inline within an XML document. Base64 seems a good candidate for this, however I can't find any native support for this encoding via PRINT or IMWRITE or any other exporting function in MATLAB. Is there any way to achieve this, via third party tools if necessary?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This feature is not available in MATLAB 7.7 (R2008b).

As a alternative, you might want to refer to the following external sources:

 Data type and data conversion utilities

 <http://home.online.no/~pjacklam/matlab/software/util/datautil/index.html>

 base64decode  -   Perform base64 decoding on a string

 base64encode  -   Perform base64 encoding on a string

Please understand that we can not guarantee or support third party products or functions, however customers have reported to successfully work with the above functions before. You also might be interested in the following source:

 <http://www.wikihow.com/Encode-a-String-to-Base64-With-Java>

To convert the figure to a string you can print it to the desired image format (using the menu or PRINT command) and afterwards read it to a string using low level I/O functions (FOPEN, FREAD, FCLOSE). Note the following example:

function str64 = encodeFigure( h )

filename = 'encodeFigure.png';

if exist('h','var')

      print(['-f' num2str(h)], '-r300','-dpng', filename );

else

      print( '-r300','-dpng', filename );

end

fid = fopen( filename, 'r' );

im = fread( fid );

fclose(fid);

str64 = base64encode( im, [] );

delete(filename);

end

[Walter Roberson]

https://blogs.mathworks.com/pick/2016/12/23/encode-images-as-base64/