Taylor, to simplify, I would consider two options:
(1) Detect the threshold crossing (i.e., data >= 1) and plot a fixed amount of data points around that crossing. Just make that number large enough to encompass the curves you're investigating. This method keeps your data chunked into a square matrix. See below. You could use variable sizing, but you would have to pad your data segements.
data = [0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 4 6 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0];
threshIdxs = find(diff(data > 1) == 1);
nPre = 3;
nPost = 10;
dataArr = zeros(nPre + nPost + 1,numel(threshIdxs));
for ii = 1:numel(threshIdxs)
dataArr(:,ii) = data(threshIdxs(ii) - nPre:threshIdxs(ii) + nPost);
end
figure;
plot(dataArr);
I have an instinct that getting the data into an array first might be helpful to you later on, so I did that before plotting.
(2) Detect the peaks in your data and align your curves around those peaks. Not knowing the nature of your problem, this may or may not be your intended goal. PeakSeek is a nice function to get started down that path.
