How to plot a smooth curve while data point order is messed up

First thanks for spending your precious time on my question.

I have a data set in a double, for example:

0.141176470588235 87.0369747899159

0.403235294117645 258.710588235294

0.354117647058822 230.757647058823

0.329117647058822 207.584537815126

0.297647058823528 184

0.244411764705881 159.604705882352

0.216176470588234 141.458823529411

0.216176470588234 119.623529411764

Countinous data..

16.0094117647058 240.645133689839

16.9411764705882 224.443208556149

17.5341176470588 213.138823529411 (n-1 th data point)

0.60000000000000 326.800000000000 (n th data points)

as you can see the order is messed up, and plotted curve looks messed up as well..

For example, the curve connects n th data points and n-1 th data point, making a kind of loop

I can easily re-order them but the problem is these data points were imported from excel spreadsheet and needs lots of time to separate them.

So I just decided to import whole spreadsheet, upto 102 columns with many blanks (recorded as NaN).

What would be the best way to plot it?

Answer 1

[Voss]

Some random data:

data = randn(10,2)

data = 10×2

-1.0678 -1.5150 -0.5278 -0.0481 0.5504 -0.7380 0.2118 -0.7771 -1.1406 -0.6477 2.1720 0.2623 1.5867 -0.3605 -1.8863 0.3281 0.2803 0.4477 0.3407 0.8607

Sort on the first column:

[~,idx] = sort(data(:,1));
data = data(idx,:)

data = 10×2

-1.8863 0.3281 -1.1406 -0.6477 -1.0678 -1.5150 -0.5278 -0.0481 0.2118 -0.7771 0.2803 0.4477 0.3407 0.8607 0.5504 -0.7380 1.5867 -0.3605 2.1720 0.2623

Then plot with the new data.

[MJ]

I truly appreciate you Voss!

You definitely saved my time.

I wish you a great day.

[Image Analyst]

@MJ I was also going to suggest sorting. So if this solves the question for you then please click the "Accept this answer" link to award @Voss "reputation points" for the answer. Thanks in advance. 🙂