thermometer_documentation.m

%% THERMOMETER      Create a graphical thermometer display
%
% THERMOMETER makes it easy to include a thermometer display in your
% real-time data acquisition and analysis application.  It takes
% 2 steps to use THERMOMETER.  First, you initialize the thermometer with basic
% information needed for the display (display range and initial temperature).
% After that, all you need to do is pass the current temperature to the thermometer.
%
% This documentation starts with the simplest syntax for the two steps,
% then provides a few more advanced options.

%% STEP 1: Initialize the thermometer
% hAx = THERMOMETER(Trange) converts the current axes to a graphical
% thermometer display.  If no figures exist, a new one will be created.
% Trange = [Tmin Tmax] specifies the minimum and
% maximum of the temperature scale.  Alternatively, Trange = [Tmin Tincr
% Tmax] specifies the scale increment, too.
% hAx is a required output in this case, as it will be passed to all subsequent 
% calls to THERMOMETER.  Specifically, hAx is the handle to the axis containing 
% the thermometer.

%% STEP 2: Update the thermometer
% THERMOMETER(hAx, T) updates the thermometer display in axis hAx to the
% specified temperature T. hAx was either passed to THERMOMETER during
% initialization, or was returned from the initialization call.

%% Specifying the axes to locate the thermometer
% THERMOMETER(hAx, Trange) creates a new graphical thermometer display in
% the specified axis, hAx.  Trange is as defined above.

%% Controlling details of the display
% For users who would like more control over the display, 
% [hAx,hPatch] = THERMOMETER(...)
% returns a handle to the patch object used to represent the thermometer
% value (i.e., the mercury). 
% 

%% Example 1 - Basics
hAx = thermometer([0 30]);   %Create a thermometer in a new figure. Range is 0 to 30 degrees
thermometer(hAx,15);         %Set current temperature to 15 degrees

%% Example 2 - Changing colors
% Create figure and axes
figure;
hAx = axes('Position',[.1 .1 .1 .8]);

%Create a thermometer on axes hAx.  Scale goes from 0 to 100 in steps
% of 20.  Initial value is 40.
[hAx,hPatch] = thermometer(hAx,[0 20 100],40);  

% Set a new color scheme
set(hAx,'Color','y');           % Yellow background
set(hPatch,'FaceColor','g')     % Green mercury

% Copyright 2003 The MathWorks, Inc