streamline (MATLAB Function Reference)

Draw stream lines from 2-D or 3-D vector data

Syntax

h = streamline(X,Y,Z,U,V,W,startx,starty,startz)
h = streamline(U,V,W,startx,starty,startz)
h = streamline(XYZ)
h = streamline(X,Y,U,V,startx,starty)
h = streamline(U,V,startx,starty)
h = streamline(XY)
h = streamline(...,options)

Description

h = streamline(X,Y,Z,U,V,W,startx,starty,startz) draws stream lines from 3-D vector data U, V, W. The arrays X, Y, Z define the coordinates for U, V, W and must be monotonic and 3-D plaid (such as the data produced by meshgrid). startx, starty, startz define the starting positions of the stream lines. The output argument h contains a vector of line handles, one handle for each stream line.

h = streamline(U,V,W,startx,starty,startz) assumes the arrays X, Y, and Z are defined as [X,Y,Z] = meshgrid(1:N,1:M,1:P) where [M,N,P] = size(U).

h = streamline(XYZ) assumes XYZ is a precomputed cell array of vertex arrays (as produced by stream3).

h = streamline(X,Y,U,V,startx,starty) draws stream lines from 2-D vector data U, V. The arrays X, Y define the coordinates for U, V and must be monotonic and 2-D plaid (such as the data produced by meshgrid). startx and starty define the starting positions of the stream lines. The output argument h contains a vector of line handles, one handle for each stream line.

h = streamline(U,V,startx,starty) assumes the arrays X and Y are defined as [X,Y] = meshgrid(1:N,1:M) where [M,N] = size(U).

h = streamline(XY) assumes XY is a precomputed cell array of vertex arrays (as produced by stream2).

streamline(...,options) specifies the options used when creating the stream lines. Define options as a one or two element vector containing the step size or the step size and the maximum number of vertices in a stream line:

[stepsize]

[stepsize, max_number_vertices]

If you do not specify values, MATLAB uses the default:

stepsize = 0.1 (one tenth of a cell)
naximum number of vertices = 1000

Examples

This example draws stream lines from data representing air currents over a region of North America. Loading the wind data set creates the variables x, y, z, u, v, and w in the MATLAB workspace.

The plane of stream lines indicates the flow of air from the west to the east (the x direction) beginning at x = 80 (which is close to the minimum value of the x coordinates). The y and z coordinate starting points are multivalued and approximately span the range of these coordinates. meshgrid generates the starting positions of the stream lines.

load wind
[sx,sy,sz] = meshgrid(80,20:10:50,0:5:15);
h = streamline(x,y,z,u,v,w,sx,sy,sz);
set(h,'Color','red')
view(3)