Am I using slice incorrectly?

I'm plotting an n x 3 matrix which has temperature data, each of the indexes corresponds to location T(x,y,z). My problem is when I use slice it switches the x and y planes. The array is still stored correctly when points are called and the slices are in the right planes but instead of x extending to 72 it only goes to 24. I'm using Matlab 2012b if that makes any difference.

clear; clc;
T=ones(72,24,72);
T(50:60, :, :)=100; 
T(:, 18:22, :)=-25;
figure;   h= slice(T,[],[], 1);
for id = 1:72
   delete(h);
   h= slice(T,[],[], id);
   set(h,'edgecolor','none');
   axis([0 72 0 24 0 72]);
   xlabel(' X axis');
   ylabel(' Y axis');
   zlabel(' Z axis');
   colorbar;
   pause(0.01);
end

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

Notice from the documentation for slice:

slice(V,sx,sy,sz) draws slices along the x, y, z directions in the volume V at the points in the vectors sx, sy, and sz. V is an m-by-n-by-p volume array containing data values at the default location X = 1:n, Y = 1:m, Z = 1:p. Each element in the vectors sx, sy, and sz defines a slice plane in the x-, y-, or z-axis direction.

Your volume is m-by-n-by-p, 72-by-24-by-72 so m=72. n=24, p=72, and so X = 1:24, Y = 1:72, Z = 1:72 which is what you are observing.

In other words, when you plot, X is columns (second index) and Y is rows (first index)

[Nicholas Kreitinger]

Thanks, that answers my question although it really messes up the organization. Why would you change the function to Y,X,Z when everything else is X,Y,Z?

[Walter Roberson]

Nothing (that I can think of) in MATLAB graphics uses X as the rows. For example if you image() an array, the rows determine the vertical values, which is the Y coordinate, and the columns determine the horizontal values, which is the X coordinate. MATLAB arrays are defined in terms of the first coordinate being "down".