How can you plot multiple, superimposed traces such that where traces overlap, the background trace is faded?

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Stephen 2025-5-16

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评论： Stephen 2025-5-16

In a recent publication on imaging nerve cell activity there is a figure showing multiple lines of responses where many of the traces overlap:

The traces have been plotted in such a way that large responses "pop" out and are clearly visible. This is because when traces overlap, the background trace is faded. (The foreground trace may also be darkened...I can't really tell). Here is a higher mnagnification of a portion of the above:

MY QUESTION: Is there a way that this effect can be achieved in Matlab?

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William Rose 2025-5-16

@Stephen,

It would be nice to do what you propose, but certainly not necessary or expected. I've read my share of papers with such plots, and I don't think I've seen one where the "background" trace is faded out. The reader can get the idea quite effectively without that nice but hard-to-implement feature.

Good luck with your work.

Stephen 2025-5-16

All true, I agree. But if there is a simple way to implement, it would be more eye-catching to readers. Whether the added effort will justify the plotting is a decision yet to be made.

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Answer 1

Nathan 2025-5-16

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编辑：Nathan 2025-5-16

在 MATLAB Online 中打开

Hi Stephen,

You can achieve this using 'waterfall' on your data, setting the FaceAlpha property to some fractional number, and manipulating the CData property of the patch (the first column of this is the bottom color!):

swaves = 150*real(ifft(eye(150))); % a fun way to generate cosine waves with integer fratctional periods

wf = waterfall(swaves(1:8, :)); % plot the first 8 modes

view(165, 45); % set the view angle

set(wf, 'FaceAlpha', 0.5, 'EdgeColor', 'flat', 'LineWidth', 1.2);

wf.CData(1, :) = NaN; % this removes the bottom edge

wf.CData(~isnan(wf.CData)) = 1; % set all the color data to index the top of the colormap

colormap(hex2rgb('#7da4c7')); % change the colormap to a single color

grid("off") % grid off to illustrate the lack of bottom edges

zlim([-2 2]) % scale the view angle

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Stephen 2025-5-16

Thanks for a solution, Nathan I'll try this and get back to you (probably not for a couple of weeks, however).

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How can you plot multiple, superimposed traces such that where traces overlap, the background trace is faded?

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How can you plot multiple, superimposed traces such that where traces overlap, the background trace is faded?

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