Graphics - The MathWorks - #251

Pie Charts

"Creating a Pie Chart" on page 5-23 "Labeling the Pie Chart" on page 5-24 "Removing a Piece from a Pie Chart" on page 5-26

Pie charts are a useful way to communicate the percentage that each element in a vector or matrix contributes to the sum of all elements. pie and pie3 create 2-D and 3-D pie charts. A 3-D pie chart does not show any more or different information than a 2-D pie chart does; it simply adds depth to the presentation by plotting the chart on top of a cylindrical base.

This example shows how to use the pie function to visualize the contribution that three products make to total sales. Given a matrix X where each column of X contains yearly sales figures for a specific product over a five-year period,

sum each row in X to calculate total sales for each product over the five-year period.

x = sum(X);

You can offset the slice of the pie that makes the greatest contribution using the explode input argument. This argument is a vector ofzero and nonzero values. Nonzero values offset the respective slice from the chart.

First, create a vector containing zeros. explode = zeros(size(x));