Generating plots in a simple way

Question

Yesterday I learnt how to make simpe plots using tikzpicture and I'm very satisfied of the result:

    \begin{tikzpicture}[thick,scale=0.6]
    \begin{axis}[
        xlabel=$\delta$,
        ylabel=$U_2$]
    \addplot[smooth,mark=*,blue] plot coordinates {
        (1,4)
        (4,2)
    };
    \addlegendentry{$\beta_2$}
    \addplot[smooth,color=red,mark=x]
        plot coordinates {
            (1,0)
            (4,9)
        };
    \addlegendentry{$\beta_1$}
    \end{axis}
    \end{tikzpicture}

However now I have to make more complex plots (e.g. boxplot) and I cannot think of doing it manually. Up to now I have a Matlab script which reads a certain amount data and generates a figure. I exclude to save it as .png anymore because I want a vectorial image inside my document.
The better way I found is to use matlab2tikz. I tried it but it gives me errors. Because I cannot access newer versions of Matlab (which wouldn't resolve anything, I think, as the figure is generated without errors. The errors are when I compile LaTeX code.) and because I don't like to deal eternally with parser errors (I have few time so I cannot risk to loose too much time on this) I was looking for another way of doing it.

What do other people do when they want to add a vectorial plot from matlab/octave/gnuplot? Is matlab2tiks the gold standard or is there some other way?

(I know that I could compute my personal tikz boxplot from raw data with a not-too-complex script, and I like the idea, but I'm guessing if there is already something that does it)

Answer 1

Boxplots are described in chapter 5.9.1 of the PGFPLOTS manual.

Like so:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.8}
\usepgfplotslibrary{statistics}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}
    [
    ytick={1,2,3},
    yticklabels={Index 0, Index 1, Index 2},
    ]
    \addplot+[
    boxplot prepared={
      median=1,
      upper quartile=1.2,
      lower quartile=0.4,
      upper whisker=1.5,
      lower whisker=0.2
    },
    ] coordinates {};
    \addplot+[
    boxplot prepared={
      median=2,
      upper quartile=2.3,
      lower quartile=1.5,
      upper whisker=2.7,
      lower whisker=1
    },
    ] coordinates {};
    \addplot+[
    boxplot prepared={
      median=0.7,
      upper quartile=1.4,
      lower quartile=0.5,
      upper whisker=1.9,
      lower whisker=0.1
    },
    ] coordinates {};
  \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

If you do want to use matlab. Try to save your image as a pdf or eps, since it is vector based, you won't loose quality.