Home/ Questions/Q 9299953
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-18T22:40:34+00:00

How the line smoothness in a contour plot can be improved for publications? For

  • 0

How the line smoothness in a contour plot can be improved for publications? For instance, the dotted lines look really bad, the continuous lines look as if their thickness varies. See below

Here’s part of the code:

Vals = [0:5:200]; contourf(X,Y,W,Vals,'EdgeColor','k','LineWidth',1.2,'LineStyle',':');axis square;grid;hold on
Vals = [10:10:200]; contour(X,Y,W,Vals,'EdgeColor','k','LineWidth',1.2);
Vals = [20 : 20 : 200]; [C,h] = contour(X,Y,W,Vals,'Color','k','LineWidth',1.8);
clabel(C,h,'FontName','Palatino Linotype','FontAngle','italic','Fontsize',9,'Color','w')

print -djpeg -r300 filename

Thanks!

enter image description here

Saved as png doesn’t help much… check the lines :/ See below:

enter image description here

Check the dotted lines now…

enter image description here

Here’s saving as eps (-r1200)… it looks better

enter image description here

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Update: I see your example code now. Did you try changing -r300 to some really high value? More pixels per inch should make everything look smoother. For publication, crank it up really high, like -r1200.

    Original:
    One thing you can try is exporting the plot in some format that supports vector graphics. Matlab supports both PDF and EMF, so try one of those. Export using the saveas command or from the figure’s “File -> Save as” menu item. After that, open or import the image file in some other application and hopefully it will look better.

    Please add a new screenshot if you get a nicer image!

    • 0