app

Figure Studio

Figure Studio restyles MATLAB figures, exports presentation copies, and extracts supported visible graphics into a portable data package. It changes presentation properties, not the calculation that produced the plot.

Open Figure Studio

From the launcher, select Figure Studio and choose Open. From a source checkout, run:

labkit_FigureStudio_app

A LabKit plot can also send its current axes to Figure Studio through the plot context menu. That handoff embeds a serializable plot snapshot in the project and immediately applies the LabKit figure preset. The source style remains available through FIG default.

Project And Handoff

A plot-context-menu handoff creates the same editable project state as loading a FIG file. Saved projects retain portable FIG sources, embedded plot snapshots, the selected subplot panel, style settings, and canvas settings. Decoded source graphics are rebuilt after load, and the default output folder follows the restored source.

Load And Select Figures

On Figures, choose Add FIG files or scan folder. The source list accepts MATLAB .fig files and keeps one current selection. Selecting another source opens its native graphics without rerunning the analysis. A mixed FIG is listed as ordered Subplot panel choices (top-left to bottom-right, with a title where one exists). Select one panel to preview, restyle, recalculate, and export exactly that axes; Studio never combines multiple panels into one output. The plot-context-menu handoff already represents one axes, so it provides one panel. Clear figures removes all sources from the project.

For a source using FIG default, Figure Studio adopts its font, semantic line widths, annotations, legend, grid, and axes appearance. Selecting LabKit figure applies the calibrated single-panel publication hierarchy while retaining the source legend placement. Switching a text preset never changes the selected plot-frame width, aspect, or export scale.

Style And Canvas Controls

Changing All font updates title, axis-label, tick, annotation, and legend sizes together. Individual controls then provide category-level refinement. LabKit figure uses a calibrated 900-by-725 px reference plot frame: 45 pt title, axis-label, tick, annotation, and legend text; 6.5 pt data strokes; 2 pt uncertainty strokes; and 1.5 pt boundary, reference, and axes strokes. The default uses a complete top/right frame with no grid and no legend box. Legend samples use the reference's long line tokens. These editable baselines come from normalized pixel measurements across all nine panels of the maintained 3-by-3 visual reference, not from a single imported FIG. The configured width and aspect always describe the inside of the axes frame. Figure Studio calculates the enclosing figure's outer margins from the current title, labels, ticks, legend, and visible annotations, so changing a long label cannot silently shrink the data region. Empty ruler text is ignored, including the zero-area placeholders MATLAB exposes on logarithmic axes. Choose Source size or one of 640, 720, 900, 960, 1200, 1237, 1364, 1600, or 2400 px; an aspect choice sets the paired plot-frame height. The workbench preview is a real interactive axes, not a raster image. When its allotted screen area changes, Studio reflows only the display text and strokes; project settings and export proportions remain unchanged. This calibration is validated on both 72-PPI Linux renderers and 96-PPI desktop MATLAB so display-density differences do not restyle exports. Export x is raster supersampling only. Top/right frame only shows or hides those two axes edges; it never changes the plot-frame size.

Font controls use 0.5 pt steps and line controls use 0.1 pt steps. The preset styles every existing category but does not create or move a legend by default, because either action can cover data. Use the Legend panel for those explicit layout changes. X tick labels retains the source angle, makes labels horizontal, or rotates them 45 degrees.

PNG and JPG resolution is 300 * Export x, with a minimum of 72 dpi. SVG uses vector content. FIG default records the source plot-frame ratio as its reference, so reopening a source does not rescale its original typography. If limits are stale after copying or editing, use Recalculate X/Y limits to fit the visible graphics, update the interactive viewport, and refresh the four limit inputs. The X/Y minimum and maximum controls accept values within the finite visible-data extent expanded by exactly 50% on both sides; they do not change the source calculation.

Quick Exports

The Figures tab provides:

• Save FIG for an editable MATLAB figure;
• PNG and JPG for raster output;
• SVG for vector output.

Each quick export also writes a LabKit result manifest beside the selected file. The manifest records the source, style parameters, output identity, and summary metadata.

Export A Data Package

On Export, select an output folder and choose Export data + script. Figure Studio creates a package containing supported visible data, style and axes metadata, and a MATLAB recreation script. For preview, editable FIG export, and image export, Studio first copies the selected native axes hierarchy when MATLAB permits the parent transition. This preserves MATLAB graphics that can be copied into the target axes, including ordinary grouped charts such as boxplot. UIAxes sources are rebuilt into conventional export axes from the portable snapshot, retaining the displayed scientific axis exponents as well as visible data. The portable data package separately recognizes visible line, bar, error-bar, area, scatter, image, surface, patch, rectangle, text, and constant-line objects. Existing legend text, visibility, placement, orientation, column count, font, interpreter, and border are retained. Explicit axis ticks, tick labels, label rotations, axis locations, and tick geometry are retained as visible presentation metadata. Visible graphics with hidden handles, such as error bars or significance brackets intentionally excluded from legends, are also retained without adding legend entries. Portable-package unsupported graphics are skipped and reported as warnings; the original FIG remains the authoritative source for object types that cannot be represented in that portable package.

The package represents displayed graphics in axes child order. It is intended for audit, handoff, and plot recreation, not for reconstructing hidden source data or rerunning the original analysis.

Programmatic Data Extraction

fig = openfig("result.fig", "invisible");
cleanup = onCleanup(@() close(fig));
ax = findobj(fig, "Type", "axes", "-depth", 1);

plotData = figure_studio.resultFiles.extractAxesData(ax(1));

plotData.axes contains titles, labels, ticks, tick labels, scales, directions, limits, grid and aspect settings, color order, font settings, and colormap when available. plotData.objects contains the graphics type, display name, coordinate/color data, style fields, and object metadata. plotData.warnings lists skipped objects.

Errors And Limitations

• A FIG must contain a readable axes to enter the editing workflow.
• Reopening a project with an existing but damaged or unsupported FIG stops the restore and preserves the currently open document; it is not presented as an empty figure source.
• Invisible objects are not exported.
• A selected single axes is copied natively when MATLAB supports that parent transition. The portable data package remains deliberately narrower and is not a promise of pixel-identical reconstruction of every MATLAB chart class.
• Callbacks, application data, custom classes, and analysis provenance inside the source figure are not treated as portable scientific data.
• Some object-specific rendering semantics cannot be reproduced from a plain graphics snapshot.

Related Functions And Documentation

• figure_studio.resultFiles.extractAxesData
• figure_studio.resultFiles.exportAxesPackage
• figure_studio.resultFiles.createStyledFigure
• LabKit Core apps
• Plotting framework