What are the possibilities to create videos in Matlab? I was searching and found mainly 3 toolboxes that work in this field, image processing, image acquisition and control vision... but how can I do it without them, just to create the video from scratch? I'm interested in various approaches to have an overview, but I was unable to find any decent tutorial or consistent source of info on the internet. 

Thanks for the help! 

Answers: 

Here are some of the different ways to create movies in (core) MATLAB. 

MOVIE2AVI 

(deprecated, use VIDEOWRITER instead) 

%# figure
figure, set(gcf, 'Color','white')
Z = peaks; surf(Z);  axis tight
set(gca, 'nextplot','replacechildren', 'Visible','off');

%# preallocate
nFrames = 20;
mov(1:nFrames) = struct('cdata',[], 'colormap',[]);

%# create movie
for k=1:nFrames
   surf(sin(2*pi*k/20)*Z, Z)
   mov(k) = getframe(gca);
end
close(gcf)

%# save as AVI file, and open it using system video player
movie2avi(mov, 'myPeaks1.avi', 'compression','None', 'fps',10);
winopen('myPeaks1.avi')

AVIFILE 

(deprecated, use VIDEOWRITER instead) 

%# figure
figure, set(gcf, 'Color','white')
Z = peaks; surf(Z);  axis tight
set(gca, 'nextplot','replacechildren', 'Visible','off');

%# create AVI object
nFrames = 20;
aviobj = avifile('myPeaks2.avi', 'fps',10);

%# create movie
for k=1:nFrames
   surf(sin(2*pi*k/20)*Z, Z)
   aviobj = addframe(aviobj, getframe(gca));
end
close(gcf)

%# save as AVI file, and open it using system video player
aviobj = close(aviobj);
winopen('myPeaks2.avi')

VIDEOWRITER 

%# figure
figure, set(gcf, 'Color','white')
Z = peaks; surf(Z);  axis tight
set(gca, 'nextplot','replacechildren', 'Visible','off');

%# create AVI object
nFrames = 20;
vidObj = VideoWriter('myPeaks3.avi');
vidObj.Quality = 100;
vidObj.FrameRate = 10;
open(vidObj);

%# create movie
for k=1:nFrames
   surf(sin(2*pi*k/20)*Z, Z)
   writeVideo(vidObj, getframe(gca));
end
close(gcf)

%# save as AVI file, and open it using system video player
close(vidObj);
winopen('myPeaks3.avi')

IMWRITE 

(technically not a movie, but an animated GIF image) 

%# figure
figure, set(gcf, 'Color','white')
Z = peaks; surf(Z);  axis tight
set(gca, 'nextplot','replacechildren', 'Visible','off');

%# preallocate
nFrames = 20;
f = getframe(gca);
[f,map] = rgb2ind(f.cdata, 256, 'nodither');
mov = repmat(f, [1 1 1 nFrames]);

%# create movie
for k=1:nFrames
    surf(sin(2*pi*k/20)*Z, Z)
    f = getframe(gca);
    mov(:,:,1,k) = rgb2ind(f.cdata, map, 'nodither');
end
close(gcf)

%# create GIF and open
imwrite(mov, map, 'myPeaks4.gif', 'DelayTime',0, 'LoopCount',inf)
winopen('myPeaks4.gif')