s:
Ellipse article on Wikipedia had a simple JavaScript code to draw ellipses.
It uses the parametric form:
x(theta) = a0 + ax*sin(theta) + bx*cos(theta)
y(theta) = b0 + ay*sin(theta) + by*cos(theta)
where
(a0,b0) is the center of the ellipse
(ax,ay) vector representing the major axis
(bx,by) vector representing the minor axis
I translated the code into a MATLAB function:
calculateEllipse.m
function [X,Y] = calculateEllipse(x, y, a, b, angle, steps)
%# This functions returns points to draw an ellipse
%#
%# @param x X coordinate
%# @param y Y coordinate
%# @param a Semimajor axis
%# @param b Semiminor axis
%# @param angle Angle of the ellipse (in degrees)
%#
narginchk(5, 6);
if nargin<6, steps = 36; end
beta = -angle * (pi / 180);
sinbeta = sin(beta);
cosbeta = cos(beta);
alpha = linspace(0, 360, steps)' .* (pi / 180);
sinalpha = sin(alpha);
cosalpha = cos(alpha);
X = x + (a * cosalpha * cosbeta - b * sinalpha * sinbeta);
Y = y + (a * cosalpha * sinbeta + b * sinalpha * cosbeta);
if nargout==1, X = [X Y]; end
end
and an example to test it:
%# ellipse centered at (0,0) with axes length
%# major=20, ,minor=10, rotated 50 degrees
%# (drawn using the default N=36 points)
p = calculateEllipse(0, 0, 20, 10, 50);
plot(p(:,1), p(:,2), '.-'), axis equal