MATLAB Function Reference (Volume 2: Graphics)

Text PropertiesEraseMode{normal} | none | xor | backgroundErase mode. This property controls the technique MATLAB uses to draw anderase text objects. Alternative erase modes are useful for creating animatedsequences, where controlling the way individual object redraw is necessary toimprove performance and obtain the desired effect.• normal — Redraw the affected region of the display, performing thethree-dimensional analysis necessary to ensure that all objects are renderedcorrectly. This mode produces the most accurate picture, but is the slowest.The other modes are faster, but do not perform a complete redraw and aretherefore less accurate.• none — Do not erase the text when it is moved or destroyed. While the objectis still visible on the screen after erasing with EraseMode none, you cannotprint it because MATLAB stores no information about its former location.• xor — Draw and erase the text by performing an exclusive OR (XOR) witheach pixel index of the screen beneath it. When the text is erased, it does notdamage the objects beneath it. However, when text is drawn in xor mode, itscolor depends on the color of the screen beneath it and is correctly coloredonly when over axes background Color, or the figure background Color if theaxes Color is set to none.• background — Erase the text by drawing it in the background Color, or thefigure background Color if the axes Color is set to none. This damagesobjects that are behind the erased text, but text is always properly colored.Printing with Non-normal Erase Modes. MATLAB always prints figures as if theEraseMode of all objects is normal. This means graphics objects created withEraseMode set to none, xor, or background can look different on screen than onpaper. On screen, MATLAB may mathematically combine layers of colors (e.g.,XORing a pixel color with that of the pixel behind it) and ignorethree-dimensional sorting to obtain greater rendering speed. However, thesetechniques are not applied to the printed output.You can use the MATLAB getframe command or other screen captureapplication to create an image of a figure containing non-normal mode objects.2-512