Why does streamslice not work with single precision data?

I was having issue plotting streamlines using stream slice, and I tracked it down to the fact that the X,Y,U,V data I was using was single precision. I modified it from double precision because the source of the data is the result of post processing data, and I wanted to conserve space. (Talking potentially TB of data). But, now all my data crunching appears useless if I want to plot streamlines, since I can't seem to use Single precision data.

I either would like to know how to use streamslice with single precision data, or know how to save structures of data from matlab to a file and truncate the numbers in the arrays being saved. I dont need double precision to represent 1.35 in an array.

Answer 1

[per isakson]

It looks like a bug to me (R2013a).

An example from the documentation works fine with double, but produces nothing but the default empty axes with single. There is no error message or warning.

    load wind
    figure
    streamslice(x,y,z,u,v,w,[],[],[5])
    axis tight
    figure
    streamslice(single(x),single(y),single(z),single(u) ...
    ,single(v),single(w),single([]),single([]),single([5]))
    axis tight
.

Workaround

    figure
    streamslice(double(x),double(y),double(z),double(u) ...
    ,double(v),double(w),double([]),double([]),double([5]))
    axis tight

- or make a wrapper. Not tested

    function streamslice4single( X,Y,Z,U,V,W,startx,starty,startz )
        x  = double(X);
        y  = double(Y);
        z  = double(Z);
        u  = double(U);
        v  = double(V);
        w  = double(W);
        sx = double( startx );
        sy = double( starty );
        sz = double( startz );

        streamslice(x,y,z,u,v,w,sx,sy,sy)
    end

[Keith Taylor]

Thank you for the response. It came to me about a minute before I saw this reply. This work around does work.