Question

I would like to plot a matrix of zeros and ones into a figure such that for every 1 i have a marker shaped like a vertical bar is plotted ” | “. Such that when a series of 1s are on the same x axis, the look like a long straight line.

This example illustrates my intentions:

Given the following matrix:

0 0 1 1 0 1 0
0 1 0 1 1 1 0
0 1 0 1 1 1 0
1 0 0 1 1 1 0

I get:

Answer 1

EDIT:

The solution below, although a bit longer than the currently accepted one, has the advantage that it creates a single LINE object (UI performance is better if you create fewer graphics objects). It works by using NaN to separate the segments:

%#A = [1 1 1 ; 0 0 0 ; 1 1 1];
A = [
    0 0 1 1 0 1 0
    0 1 0 1 1 1 0
    0 1 0 1 1 1 0
    1 0 0 1 1 1 0
];

%# build line x/y points
[m n] = size(A);
[x y] = meshgrid(1:n, 1:m);    %# grid coordinates
x(~A) = NaN;                   %# place NaNs where A is zero
y(~A) = NaN;
x = [x;NaN(1,n)];              %# separate columns by NaNs
y = [y;NaN(1,n)];
x = [x(:) x(:)]';              %'# add endpoints
y = [y(:) y(:)+1]';            %'#
x = x(:);                      %# linearize
y = y(:);

%# plot
line('XData',x, 'YData',y-0.5, 'Color','k', 'LineStyle','-', 'LineWidth',4)
set(gca, 'XGrid','on', 'Box','on', 'FontSize',8, 'LineWidth',2, ...
    'XLim',[0 n]+0.5, 'YLim',[0 m]+0.5, 'XTick',1:n, 'YTick',1:m, ...
    'YDir','reverse')
%#set(gca, 'XTick',[], 'YTick',[])