polarhistogram — Create histogram charts in polar coordinates.

polarhistogram(theta) bins angular samples in radians and renders each bin as a polar wedge whose radius is the bin count or normalized bin value. Theta values wrap periodically into the selected angular range. The returned handle reuses MATLAB-style histogram object properties such as BinEdges, BinCounts, Values, Data, NumBins, BinWidth, BinLimits, Normalization, DisplayStyle, FaceColor, FaceAlpha, EdgeColor, and DisplayName.

Syntax

h = polarhistogram(theta)
h = polarhistogram(theta, nbins)
h = polarhistogram(theta, edges)
h = polarhistogram(theta, Name, Value, ...)
h = polarhistogram(pax, ___)
h = polarhistogram('BinEdges', edges, 'BinCounts', counts)

Inputs

Returns

Errors

How polarhistogram works

• polarhistogram(theta) creates a histogram object handle and marks the target axes as polar with equal x/y scaling. With no bin controls it uses six angular bins spanning [0, 2*pi].
• polarhistogram(theta, nbins) and polarhistogram(theta, edges) use the same scalar bin-count and explicit edge-vector semantics as histcounts.
• Finite theta samples are wrapped into the chosen angular range before binning; non-finite samples are ignored by the histogram counts and exposed as NaN in normalized stored Data.
• Name/value bin controls such as BinEdges, NumBins, BinWidth, BinLimits, Normalization, and BinMethod are forwarded through the same binning implementation as histogram.
• polarhistogram('BinEdges', edges, 'BinCounts', counts) creates a polar histogram from precomputed bin counts without sample data.
• DisplayStyle accepts bar and stairs; stairs renders the outer polar bin arcs without filled radial wedges.
• Common bar styling arguments such as FaceColor, EdgeColor, LineWidth, BarWidth, FaceAlpha, and DisplayName are accepted.
• The target axes form polarhistogram(ax, ...) plots into an existing axes handle.
• The returned handle has type histogram; get exposes histogram state and supported set calls update Normalization, DisplayName, DisplayStyle, FaceColor, FaceAlpha, and EdgeColor.

Examples

Create a polar histogram

theta = 2*pi*rand(1, 1000);
h = polarhistogram(theta);

Expected output:

% h is a histogram object handle

Use explicit angular bin edges

theta = [0 0.2 1.0 2.0];
edges = 0:pi/4:2*pi;
h = polarhistogram(theta, edges);
get(h, 'BinEdges');

Normalize and style the chart

theta = 2*pi*rand(1, 500);
h = polarhistogram(theta, 'NumBins', 16, 'Normalization', 'probability', 'FaceColor', 'red', 'DisplayName', 'angles');
get(h, 'Normalization')

Expected output:

ans =
    'probability'

Plot precomputed polar bin counts with stairs display

edges = [0 pi 2*pi];
counts = [4 2];
h = polarhistogram('BinEdges', edges, 'BinCounts', counts, 'DisplayStyle', 'stairs');
get(h, 'BinCounts');

Using polarhistogram with coding agents

Open a RunMat example with live inputs, then ask the agent to explain how polarhistogram changes the result.

FAQ

Related Plotting functions

Open-source implementation

Unlike proprietary runtimes, every RunMat function is open-source. Read exactly how polarhistogram is executed, line by line, in Rust.

• View the source for polarhistogram in Rust on GitHub
• Learn how the RunMat runtime works
• Found a bug? Open an issue with a minimal reproduction.

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