Arrow3 Version 5

Draws lines with directional arrowheads.

Description

ARROW3(P1,P2) draws lines from P1 to P2 with directional arrowheads. P1 and P2 are either nx2 or nx3 matrices. Each row of P1 is an initial point, and each row of P2 is a terminal point.

ARROW3(P1,P2,S,W,H,IP,ALPHA,BETA) can be used to specify properties of the line, initial point marker, and arrowhead. Type "help arrow3" at the command prompt for more information

What's new in Version 5:

All arrowhead and initial point marker sizes (W, H, and IP) are relative to the PlotBox diagonal.

Version 5 attempts to preserve the appearance of existing axes. In particular, ARROW3 will not change XYZLim, View, or CameraViewAngle. ARROW3 does not, however, support stretch-to-fill scaling. If a particular aspect ratio or variable limit is required, use DASPECT, PBASPECT, AXIS, or XYZLIM commands before calling ARROW3. Users are encouraged to report problems directly to the author.

Acknowledgements

Arrow3 Version 4.58 inspired this file.

This file inspired M Arrow3.M Easy To Use 3 D Arrow and Determination Of The Minimum Distance Between Two Super Ellipsoids Surfaces. Using Optimization.

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 6.5 (R13)

[yang yang]

Thanks for your arrow3 program.

[Ben]

Great code. Have been using it for quite a long time.

[Ben]

 

[Matthew]

 

[Tom Davis]

Hi, Jonas --

Please try version 5.15. Thanks.

-- Tom

[Jonas]

I've downloaded arrow3 sometime in 2002 for the first time; great job, guys!

In order to avoid possible conflicts with other code writing to the 'UserData' property, I suggest replacing these calls by "setappdata(ax,'arrow3',value)"

[Ji?í]

It does not ignore zero magnitue input (R2012a).

>> arrow3([1 1],[1 1])
Error using arrow3 (line 373)
P1 cannot equal P2

[Jeonghyun Seo]

 

[Xilu Wang]

Thanks!!!

[Daniel]

Hi Tom,

thanks for that nice contribution. I would enjoy if you could modify the input arguments with string propertys (similar to most of the inbuilt-functions (f.e. 'LineWidth', 2)), in particular to add a 'Parent' property to get rid of the problems with multiple axes!

Thanks,
Daniel

[Tom Davis]

Hello, Tomazc --

Please try this and write if you have questions. Thanks.

% Animation Example
figure(5)
t=(0:pi/40:8*pi)'; u=cos(t); v=sin(t);
plot3(20*t,u,v)
axis([0,600,-1.5,1.5,-1.5,1.5])
grid on, view(35,25)
hold on
pbaspect([1.8,1.4,1])
arrow3(zeros(3),diag([500,1.5,1.5]),'l',0.7,[],0)
p=[20*t,u,v]; inc=4:1:length(t);
p2=p(inc,:); p1=p(inc-1,:);
hn=arrow3(p1(1,:),p2(1,:),'0_b',0.7);
for i=2:1:length(p1)
delete(hn)
hn=arrow3(p1(i,:),p2(i,:),'0_b',0.7);
pause(0.01)
end
hold off

[solo]

 

[Tomazc]

I'd like to use arrow3 in animation (for function) where only one arrow will be shown, so i cannot use 'hold on'.
In this case the 'axis' are not working, but i need the same view.

Any suggestion?

figure('Name',['Arrow'])
axis([-400 400 -400 400 -100 700])
XLABEL('x')
YLABEL('y')
ZLABEL('z')
whitebg([1 1 1]);
set(gcf,'Color',[1,1,1]);
view(35, 25)
grid on

for i = 1:1:15
arrow3([x(i),y(i),z(i)],[fx(i),f(i),fz(i)]);
pause(0.1)
end

[Sauro Salomoni]

Does what it's supposed to do, and the help files are VERY detailed. Thank you very much! :)

[Gabriel Akira Schreiber]

 

[Gabriel Akira Schreiber]

 

[Tom Davis]

Instead of using Copy Figure from the Edit menu, use Save As from the File menu, save the figure as a PNG file, and then insert the PNG file into Word.

[Lei Shang]

Very useful with 3D plots. But when I'm copying figures to word, all the nice arrows plotted by 'arrow3.m' disappeared. And my command window displays:

Warning: RGB CData not yet supported in Painter's mode
> In graphics\private\restorehg at 100
In graphics\private\restore at 29
In print at 277
In editmenufcn at 78

How do I fix this?

[Lei Shang]

 

[Tom Davis]

Wide lines may obscure the arrowhead tip, but the line endpoint and arrowhead tip are _always_ coincident.

[Philipp Wissgott]

On my matlab (R2007a) the line of the arrow is visible after the tip of the arrowhead in 2D plots. It looks like as if the arrowhead is plotted at the wrong position.
In my example arrow3 is called after some calls of "line()" and "rectangle()". I can supply further information if required.

[Tom Davis]

It is not necessary to set AXIS EQUAL, but commands that may change the aspect ratio should be issued _before_ calling ARROW3. ARROW3 draws surfaces that look like right circular cones and spheres no matter the aspect ratio, but the ratio must be fixed, and changing the ratio will distort the surfaces.

There are many examples in the HTML files that illustrate how to use ARROW3 before and after PLOT, POLAR, CONTOUR, PLOT3, SURF, SLICE, and PATCH.

[piao lin]

it seems if I want to plot another plot3(......) with arrow3(.....)

I should

figure,arrow3(.....);
hold on;
axis equal ; %you'd better use axis equal
plot3(....);

if I put plot3(....) before arrow3(.....) ,just like below ,I get not see the result of arrow3(.....);

figure,plot3(....);
hold on;
axis equal ; %you'd better use axis equal
arrow3(.....);

[Vaibhav Deshpande]

I am doing a project in layup optimization of balanced symmetric laminates, and I wanted to display at each call to fmincon the material direction for my laminate, I was able to so by using arrow3, thank you.

Regards,
Vaibhav Deshpande.

[Georg Stillfried]

works fine

[dong ding]

it's excellent.I can use it to draw my picture. thanks!

[Ahmet Sacan]

I was happily using arrow.m until I came to see that it for some reason did not draw anything when my m file was deployed (i.e., running executable that resulted from mcc). I came back to File Exchange for a different arrower instead of trying to debug arrow.m. Now I'm using arrow3 which works fine in deployed mode. thanks.

[maricel miguel]

I havent tried it but looks good from the screen shot, what was the thought process on this one, and how long did it took you