Selecting figure data interactively with rectangle or point

I am trying to augment my working point selection tool with a rectangle/box selection option. The tool allows me to select points one by one, optionally adding these to a list of flagged indexes for the data. The UI works for points (ginput, button1 'UserData'=1), but when I use the box selection (drawrectangle, button0 'UserData'=1), the button0 'UserData' is never 1, so the data are not flagged.

close all
clear
fh = figure;
x1=300:10:1000;
y1(1,:) = ones(1,length(x1));
y1(2,:) = 2*y1(1,:);
y1(3,:) = 3*y1(1,:);
plot(x1,y1)
hold on
ylim([0 4])
flag = zeros(1,size(y1,1));
disp('Manual Screening')
disp('Zoom to y1 of interest and hit Box or Point select.')
disp('Accept to save and move on. Reject to ignore last.')
button0 = uicontrol(fh,'Style', 'pushbutton', 'String', 'Box select',...
    'Position', [5 200 60 25], 'Callback', @buttonCallBack);
button1 = uicontrol(fh,'Style', 'pushbutton', 'String', 'Point select',...
    'Position', [5 150 60 25], 'Callback', @buttonCallBack);
button2 = uicontrol('Style', 'pushbutton', 'String', 'Accept',...
    'Position', [5 100 50 25], 'Callback', @buttonCallBack);
button3 = uicontrol('Style', 'pushbutton', 'String', 'Reject',...
    'Position', [5 50 50 25], 'Callback', @buttonCallBack);
button4 = uicontrol('Style', 'pushbutton', 'String', 'Exit',...
    'Position', [5 5 50 25], 'Callback', @buttonCallBack);
while 1    
    disp('Zoom to data of interest and choose selector.')
    
    uiwait(fh)
    if get(button4,'userdata') == 1
        disp('Exitting')
        break
    end
    if get(button1,'userdata') == 1
        [x,y] = ginput(1);
        [~,windex] = find_nearest(x,x1);
        spectrumX = y1(:,windex);
        [~,Rindex] = find_nearest(y,spectrumX);
        plot(x1(windex),y1(Rindex,windex),'*k')
    elseif get(button0,'userdata') == 1
        h=drawrectangle;
        pos = h.Position;
        xmin = pos(1);
        ymin = pos(2);
        xmax = pos(1) + pos(3);
        ymax = pos(2) + pos(4);
        indexOfInterest = (x1 >= xmin) & (x1 <= xmax) & (y1 >= ymin) & (y1 <= ymax);
        for i=1:size(y1,1)
            plot(x1(1,indexOfInterest(i,:)),y1(i,indexOfInterest(i,:)),'*k')
        end
    end
    set(button0,'userdata',0)
    set(button1,'userdata',0)
    set(button2,'userdata',0)
    set(button3,'userdata',0)
    set(button4,'userdata',0)
    
    uiwait
    if get(button0,'userdata') == 1 || get(button1,'userdata') == 1 || get(button3,'userdata') == 1
        set(button0,'userdata',0)
        set(button1,'userdata',0)
        set(button2,'userdata',0)
        set(button3,'userdata',0)
        set(button4,'userdata',0)
        continue
    elseif get(button2,'userdata') == 1
        if get(button1,'userdata') == 1
            % This works
            [~,windex] = find_nearest(x,x1);
            spectrumX = y1(:,windex);
            [~,Rindex] = find_nearest(y,spectrumX);
        elseif get(button0,'userdata') == 1
            % This does not work
            Rindex = find(any(indexOfInterest,2));
        end
        plot(x1,y1(Rindex,:),'k','LineWidth',3)
        flag(Rindex) = 1;
        fprintf('Index of selected y1: %d\n',Rindex)
        set(button0,'userdata',0)
        set(button1,'userdata',0)
        set(button2,'userdata',0)
        set(button3,'userdata',0)
        set(button4,'userdata',0)
    elseif get(button4,'userdata') == 1
        disp('Exitting and saving')
        break
    end
end
%%
function buttonCallBack(hObject,~)
set(hObject,'UserData',1)
uiresume
end
%%
function [near_scalar, index] = find_nearest(scalar,list)
diff = abs(list - scalar);
[~, index_a] = min(diff);
index = index_a(1);  % Pick the first if equidistant
near_scalar = list(index);
end

Answer 1

[Taylor]

You're running into a state management bug: you’re using the buttons’ UserData both as an event trigger (to uiresume) and as persistent state (to remember whether the last selection was point or box). You reset the UserData to 0 right after the selection step, so when you press Accept, your elseif get(button0,'userdata') == 1 never fires for the rectangle path.

I would recommend switching to App Designer to build this app. There is even a free course to get you started.

[Dirk]

Understood. Thank you for the recommendation.