It is quite easy to copy axes and corresponding legend to a new figure. All you have to do is to use copyobj function as follows.
If you want to copy a specific axes and corresponding legend to a new figure it could be done this way
% existing figure
h = surf(peaks);
colormap hsv
leg = legend('temperature'); %Store legend object for copying
ax = findobj(gcf,'type','axes'); %Retrieve the axes to be copied
% new figure
fig = figure;
copyobj([leg,ax],fig);
colormap(fig,hsv);
If you intend to copy every figure child to a new figure you can simply do the following.
% existing figure
h = surf(peaks);
colormap hsv
legend('temperature');
oldfig = gcf;
% new figure
fig = figure;
copyobj(oldfig.Children,fig);
colormap(fig,hsv);
Hope this helps.
Cheers!
