Combine a number of vectors into a 2D color plot

I have a number of intensity profiles (saved as vectors) across the diameter of a laser beam, taken at increments along the length of the beam. I would like to generate a color plot similar to the one attached, with the vectors I have being vertical slices of this image. I have managed to get close using plot3 (second image attached) and setting hold on. With this approach the arguments of plot3 are a 1xn X vector of the distance along the diameter (same for each profile), a 1xn uniform Y vector for the increment along the beam (eg [2;2;2;2;2]), and a 1xn Z vector of the intensity. Is there some way to combine all the separate Z intensity vectors to produce an X,Y,intensity color plot, perhaps using pcolor?

[Jos (10584)]

Can you add axis labels and legend to your graphs?

[Benjamin Westberry]

Hi, yes sorry here they are.

As for what I am trying to do, rather than a Z axis I would like a color map with the height corresponding to a color (the colors here are just generated by MATLAB and are not intended)

Answer 1

[Jos (10584)]

Are all the vectors Zn of the same length? Then you can concatenate them into a single matrix with M rows (M is the number of slices/vectors) and N rows (N is the number of points along the slice).

You can create a surf plot an view it from the top, along these lines to:

surf(peaks) 
view([0 90])
xlabel('X') ; ylabel('Y')

[Benjamin Westberry]

Hi, thanks for the suggestion. Yes all vectors of Z and Y are the same length. I have tried concatenating all Z and Y vectors into one matrix and using surf(matrix) and mesh(matrix), however I get the attached figure and I can't understand why it looks the way it does.

Below is a simple example of how I have concatenated the matrix with vectors of length 3. The X column is generated using a*ones(3) where a is the increment along the beam. The Y and Z columns are the actual data captured.

Maybe my problem is just in the way I have organised the matrix?

[Benjamin Westberry]

Your suggestion worked once I transposed each vector before appending to the matrix. Thanks a lot!

[Jos (10584)]

You're welcome.