PyColormap4Matlab

Simple Matlab and python script that import colormaps from matplotlib into Matlab.

getPyPlot_cMap returns any colormap implemented in the matplotlib python library. It calls a python script that writes the colormap matrix into a temporary file, i.e. python (and the matplotlib module) is required. However, the advantage is that you get all the colormaps implemented in matplotlib and that you can specify the number of RGB quantization levels, i.e. the number of colors of the colormap.

A list of colormap names is provided in the function help section. getPyPlot_cMap('!GetNames') returns a cellstring containing all available colormap names. See https://matplotlib.org/examples/color/colormaps_reference.html for an illustration of colormaps.

Also available on

Usage

cMapNames = getPyPlot_cMap('!GetNames')
Returns a cellstring containing all available colormap names.

cMap = getPyPlot_cMap(cMapName)
Returns the colormap cMapName with the default of 128 colors. cMap will be a 128x3 matrix.

cMap = getPyPlot_cMap(cMapName, NumberOfColors)
Specify the number of colors, i.e. the number of rows in cMap.

cMap = getPyPlot_cMap(cMapName, NumberOfColors, keepAlphaChannel)
If keepAlphaChannel is not 0 cMap has a 4th column containing the alpha channel.

cMap = getPyPlot_cMap(cMapName, NumberOfColors, keepAlphaChannel, pythonSystemCommand)
Lets you specify the python command (possibly including a path, see below) used to execute the python script.

Errors

If you have python installed but Matlab says There was an error executing the command... System returned:... you can try to pass the path to your python installation explicitly as the 4th parameter, e.g.:

cmp = getPyPlot_cMap('Accent', [], [], '"c:\Program Files\Python37\python.exe"');

Note the double-quotes around the path, which are neccessary because of the containing space character.