What is Clipping?

Clipping occurs when part of a plot occurs outside the boundaries of an axes. In MATLAB®, the part of the plot that is clipped does not appear on the screen or in printed output. The axis limits of the plot determine the boundaries.

Turn Clipping Off

By default, MATLAB clips plots that extend outside of the axes limits.

figure
surf(peaks)
zlim([-4 4])

Use the axes Clipping property to control the clipping behavior.

ax = gca;               % get the current axis
ax.Clipping = 'off';    % turn clipping off

Control the Clipping Style

Use the ClippingStyle property to control the way clipping works. If the ClippingStyle is set to '3dbox', then MATLAB clips the plots to the volume defined by the limits of the x, y, and z axes. If the ClippingStyle is set to 'rectangle', then MATLAB clips the plots to an imaginary rectangle drawn around the outside of the x, y, and z axes. The plots below show the difference between the two clipping styles.

Clipping in 2D plots

Clipping is also used in 2D plots. For example, MATLAB clips the sine wave in the plot below.

x = -pi:pi/20:pi;
y = sin(-pi:pi/20:pi);
plot(x,y)
ylim([-0.9 0.9])

If clipping is turned off, then MATLAB displays the entire sine wave.

ax = gca;
ax.Clipping = 'off';

Clipping and Markers

Clipping does not affect markers drawn at each data point as long as the data point itself is inside the x and y axis limits of the plot. MATLAB displays the entire marker even if it extends slightly outside the boundaries of the axes.

p = plot(1:10,'*');
p.MarkerSize = 10;
axis([1 10 1 10])