Hey Luke,
I tried out the code you shared and made a few adjustments that should help ensure your PDF exports exactly to scale.
clear all
close all
clc
d_pipe = input('Enter pipe outer diameter, (mm) ');
disp(d_pipe);
c_pipe = pi*d_pipe;
disp('pipe circumference (mm) ');
disp(c_pipe);
c_pipe_cm = c_pipe/10;
angle_cut = input('enter cutting angle (deg) ');
disp(angle_cut);
angle_cut_rad = angle_cut*pi/180;
amp_cm = d_pipe*tan(angle_cut_rad)/20;
x = linspace(-pi, pi, 1000);
x_cm = linspace(0,c_pipe_cm,1000);
y = amp_cm*cos(x)+amp_cm;
figure;
plot(x_cm, y, 'k', 'Linewidth', 3);
xlabel('Pipe circumference (cm)');
ylabel('Cutting template (cm)');
% title('Cutting template');
% graph limits for template
xlim([0, c_pipe_cm]);
% set figure size and position
width_cm = c_pipe_cm;
height_cm = 2*amp_cm;% double amplitude for enough vertical space
set(gcf, 'units', 'centimeters', 'position', [0, 0, width_cm, height_cm]);
% Added line
set(gca, 'Position', [0 0 1 1], 'Units', 'normalized');
% ensure pdf matches figure size
set(gcf, 'paperunits', 'centimeters');
set(gcf, 'papersize', [width_cm, height_cm]);
set(gcf, 'paperposition', [0, 0, width_cm, height_cm])
% export to pdf
print(gcf, 'Pipe template.pdf', '-dpdf', '-r300');
Changes I made:
- On line 34, I set “height_cm” to twice the amplitude to give you more vertical space.
- On line 36, I updated the figure position to use the new “height_cm” value.
- I also added a line to set the axes position (set(gca, 'Position', [0 0 1 1], 'Units', 'normalized');). This ensures the exported PDF is to scale, fills the entire page, and doesn't have unwanted margins or whitespace.
When printing, just make sure to select “100%” or “Actual size” in your print settings. This should give you a template that matches your specified dimensions exactly.
Here is the documentation on various properties for Axes, for your reference:
Hope this helps you get the desired result!
