votebar

function to plot 'election-like' 3d bars

Description

  function to plot election-like 3d bars.
  hp=votebar(high,val,colo,randomVote)

  INPUT:
  high: absolute height of the bars (1 value)
  val: a vector of N-values to plot
  colo: a 2D-matrix of N x RGB-color triplets
  randomVote: set [1] make your own election and compare with reality.
  This might be usefull to simulated the sort of randomness one sometimes
  feels after elections.

  OUTPUT: handles of the patches: for N-columns this is a 4 x N matrix,
   1st line: refering to the gray/empty urn(s)
   2nd -||-: -||- colored column(s)
   3rd -||-: -||- bottom of the colomn(s)
   4th -||-: -||- top of the column(s)
  
  
  % example 1: plot 10 columns as staircase , with random colors
   hp=votebar(7,1:7,[],0)
  
  %example 2; %participate in Germany's election, hit <space> to give your
  % vote
  val=rand(1,5)*100
  col=[0 0 0;1 0 0; 1 1 0;0 .6 0; 1 0 1];
  votebar(100,val,col,1);

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.5 (R2007b)

[Wolfgang Schwanghart]

Nice one! Works perfectly. Yet I think this function could be made more user-friendly in some ways.

1. Leave the latter two inputs optional such that the function can be called like hp=votebar(high,val);
2. Surpress the output of hp if the function is called without output arguments

Moreover, I found it extremely useful to add some functionality to label the plots. For example it might be great, if a legend could be added to the figure using the function legend.

Yet, all in all this function offers a nice add-on to Matlab's visualization functionality.