OENG1206 – Digital Fundamentals

Introduction to the MATLAB Environment

Lecturer: Dr Shruti Nirantar

Lectorial Overview

• In this lectorial we’ll be looking at the MATLAB environment

and some of the useful features it has.
• We’ll then continue to look at how we can use MATLAB to
generate data.
• Lastly, we’ll consider how data and files can be imported
into MATLAB such as Excel spreadsheets, text files,
images and audio.
Basic Numeric Variables in MATLAB

• To create simple, numeric variables in MATLAB you can assign

a number to a variable name followed by a semicolon (;).
• By default all numbers in MATLAB will be stored as a double-
precision floating point number, e.g.:
a = 1.5;
mass = 20;
vel_light = 2.99792e8; %Scientific notation!
• As you can see, a variable name can be a single letter or word.
It helps to have meaningful names for variables.
• Variables can also be created using mathematical operators:
mass = 20; % Mass of object (in kg)
accel = 1.5; % Acceleration of object (ms-2)
force = mass*accel; % Mathematically find force from
Newton’s law (F = ma)
Basic Character Variables in MATLAB

• Less commonly you may need to have letters or words as

variables (perhaps as labels for a graph).
• To create character arrays in MATLAB we can do the
following:
label_N = ‘North’;
label_S = ‘South’;
label_E = ‘East’;
label_W = ‘West’;
• The pink colour shows that these are characters.
• To convert a number to a character array we can use:
MyNum = 225; %Number stored as a double
MyNumStr = num2str(MyNum); %use num2str (number to
string) to convert double to characters.
Activity: Creating Variables in MATLAB

• Create a MATLAB script to calculate the acceleration, a in

the physical system shown below (all values must be
stored in appropriately named variables).

• For a physical system consisting of force (F), mass (m),

and acceleration (a) and assuming no friction, the
following equation applies:
F = ma
Activity: Creating Variables in MATLAB

• Use MATLAB to find the area of the following triangle (all

values must be stored in appropriately named variables).

• The area of a triangle can be given as:

A = ½.b.h
Activity: Creating Variables in MATLAB

• Create a MATLAB script to calculate the value of  in degrees

for the right-angled triangle shown below (all values must be
stored in appropriately named variables).

• MATLAB has trigonometric functions: sin(), cos(), tan(),

asin(), acos()and atan() which use radians. To convert
to degrees use ( is pi in MATLAB):
180 × 𝜃rad
𝜃deg =
𝜋
The input() Function

• The input() function is used to obtain an input from a

user on the Command Line.
• Typically the syntax is as follows:
x = input(‘Please enter a number: ’);
• This allows a user to enter a number into the Command
Line, this number will then be stored in the Workspace as the
variable x.
• Another usage of this function is to obtain text (string) input:
str = input(‘Please enter a word: ’, ‘s’);
• This will take in the text entered and store it in the
Workspace as the variable str.
The disp() Function

• The disp() function is used to display a variable or text

string on the Command Line. The syntax for this could be:
disp(x)
• This displays the contents of variable x on the command line.
• To output a text string to the command line you could use:
disp(‘Hello World!’)
• Lastly, you can concatenate strings and numeric variables
together and output the result:
str = [‘The answer is: ’ num2str(x)];
disp(str)
• This will output the text ‘The answer is: ’ followed by the
contents of the variable x to the command line.
The fprintf() Function

• The fprintf() function is used to output formatted text

to the Command Line.
• It’s similar to disp() but allows more flexibility with
formatting:
fprintf(‘%1.3f\n’, x)
• This outputs the variable x as a floating point number with
3 decimal place precision then a new line (\n is newline).
• The %f says the number is floating point, while the
numbers (1.3) dictate precision.
• Some other useful formats are: %s for a string array, %d or
%i for an integer and %e for exponential format
(e.g. 1.628910e-5).
The fprintf() Function

• Pure text can also be output similarly to disp() as follows:

fprintf(‘Hello World!\n’)
• This will display the string ‘Hello World!’ then start a new
line.
• Lastly, concatenating strings and variables together is a
little easier:
fprintf(‘The answer is: %1.3f\n’, x)
• Could output:
>> The answer is 1.325
fprintf(‘Converting %s to %s will give: $%1.2f\n’,
val1, val2, x)
• Could output:
>> Converting AUD to USD will give $56.50
Activity: Using the input() and disp() Functions

• Modify your MATLAB script that calculates the value of 

for the right-angled triangle so it now gets the values of O
and A from the user instead.

• Again, to convert to degrees use ( is pi in MATLAB):

180 × 𝜃rad
𝜃deg =
𝜋
Importing Data into MATLAB

• MATLAB can be used to import (and export) data into

your programs.
• Often you’ll have data in some form (image, waveform,
spreadsheet, text file, etc) that must be imported,
processed and exported to solve a problem.
• MATLAB has built-in functions to import and export data.
• These were covered in the lecture recording for this
week:
• readmatrix() (and export function writematrix())
• readcell() (and export function writecell())
• audioread() (and export function audiowrite())
• imread() (and export function imwrite())
Activity: Importing CSV Data

• Download the CSV file ‘scope1.csv’ from Canvas, the first

column is time and the second is voltage.
• Import the data into the MATLAB Workspace using the
readmatrix() function.
• Plot the voltage against time using a line graph.
• To plot one column of a matrix called x, against another
column you can use:
figure(1)
plot(x(:,1), x(:,2)) % Plots the second column of
x w.r.t. the first column of x
• We’ll look more at this next week when we cover arrays,
plotting and indexing.
Activity: Importing Excel Spreadsheets

• Download the spreadsheet ‘buildings.xlsx’ from Canvas.

• Import the spreadsheet into the MATLAB Workspace
using the readcell() function to begin with.
• Open the imported data through the MATLAB Workspace
and look at what’s stored in the variable.
• Compare this with what Microsoft Excel shows.
• Now, try importing this same spreadsheet using the
readmatrix() function.
• Take note of what happens to the text fields when you do
this.
Activity: Importing Audio Files

• Download the audio file ‘gameover.wav’ from Canvas.

• Import the audio and sampling rate into the MATLAB
Workspace using the audioread() function.
• Play the audio back using soundsc(), remember to use
the sampling rate imported with your audio to do this.
• Change the sampling rate to 30,000 then 60,000 and listen
to what happens when you play the sound back at the
wrong rate.
Activity: Importing Images

• Download the image file ‘barbara.png’ from Canvas.

• Import the image into the MATLAB Workspace using the
imread() function.
• View the image on a new figure window by using the
imshow() function. Also, look at the variable in the
Workspace to see how a greyscale image is stored
• Download and import the coloured image ‘lena.tiff’ and
repeat the above task. Take note how coloured images are
stored in the Workspace.
Finally

• This lectorial has introduced the MATLAB environment and

how to create simple script files.
• We started by looking at how we can create variables
including numeric and characters.
• Lastly, we looked at functions that can be used to import
and export common data types into MATLAB.