Plotting two disconnnected surfaces simultaneously in matlab

Question

I'm running a for loop which currently animates surf plots using columns 1:k (for k=1:301) of 3 different matrices (representing x, y, and z) of dimension 21 x 602. However, simultaneously I want to surf plot columns for 302:k+301, so that in essence, I get the animations of two flux tubes at the same time.

Currently, I have:

p = surf(nan(21,602), nan(21,602), nan(21,602));
for k = 1:301
     % Update all of the plot objects at once
     set(p, 'XData', x(:, 1:k), ...
            'YData', y(:, 1:k), ...
            'ZData', z(:, 1:k),'facecolor', Colour, 'edgecolor',EdgeColour,...
    'facelighting','gouraud')
drawnow
end

But obviously, this is only plotting the first animation as it's currently written. How can this be adapted to also plot the other columns required (and therefore the other animation) at the same time?

Thanks

Answer 1

How about this:

p1 = surf([0 0 ;0 0]);
hold all
p2 = surf([0 0 ;0 0]);
for k = 1:301
    % Update all of the plot objects at once
    set(p1, 'XData', x(:,1:k), ...
        'YData', y(:,1:k), ...
        'ZData', z(:,1:k),'facecolor', Colour, 'edgecolor',EdgeColour,...
        'facelighting','gouraud')
    set(p2, 'XData', a(:,1:k), ...
        'YData', b(:,1:k), ...
        'ZData', c(:,1:k),'facecolor', Colour, 'edgecolor',EdgeColour,...
        'facelighting','gouraud')
    drawnow
end
hold off

x,y,z is the data for one helix, and a,b,c is the data for the other helix. You need to create two different axes (p1 and p2) so surf wan't connect the data altogether

Hope it answers the question :)