Rendering a 3D Objective Function in Matlab

Author

Chris Sharpe

Keywords

Matlab, Objective Function Rendering.

Review Status

Unreviewed


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Introduction

In this short piece is demonstrated the means to render a 3D objective function in Matlab. It aims not only to give a clear, instant visual idea of the objective function but also create a quality image that is suitable for inclusion in research papers.
Part 1 extracts specific data required for rendering, which is then processed so that objective function can be calculated for the sample.
Part 2 shows how to cover the entire objective function space with parameter values drawn at regular intervals and create the main data structures required to render the objective function graph.
Part 3 demonstrates the Matlab graph functions to create the objective function image, and uses the 'camera' view utility to obtain a clear view of the landscape. This is output to an .eps file.

The Example

The example shown is for creating the objective function for Least Medium of Squares as an estimation tool and used in connexion with the CAPM. (For a detailed account of this work see, Least Median of Squares Estimation by Optimization Heuristics with an Application to CAPM.)

Code Description

First we read in the data from the .mat file. For this example we extract the returns for a particular stock - IBM in this example - from the Dow Jones Index and select the first 200 days for processing.

    %Read in the data and take a subset of observations from a stock.
    load DJIA30;
    noOfObs = length(DJIA30.Date);

    ibm = 14;
    SECTOR = ibm; 

    % Daily return differnces
    dj_return = log(DJIA30.AdjPrice(2:noOfObs,31)) - log(DJIA30.AdjPrice(1:noOfObs-1,31));
    ibm_return = log(DJIA30.AdjPrice(2:noOfObs,SECTOR)) - log(DJIA30.AdjPrice(1:noOfObs-1,SECTOR));

    %Compound Interest rate calculated to give a daily rate
    rs = (1+DJIA30.AdjPrice(2:noOfObs,32)).^(1/250) - 1;

    xx = dj_return(1:noOfObs-1) - rs(1:noOfObs-1);
    yy = ibm_return(1:noOfObs-1) - rs(1:noOfObs-1);

    %Subset of observations
    start = 1;
    n = 200;

    x = xx(start:n);
    y = yy(start:n);

Next we store the results of objective function calculations from a set of paired values for alpha and beta. We store this in a 2D matrix, where the dimensions n and m are equal to the length of the alpha and beta set.

    %These are the number of points in our alpha and beta set
    cells = 50;

    %This is the size of the interval between the boundary values for alpha and beta 
    a_span = 0.02;
    b_span = 1;

    %Calculate the increments between alpha and beta boundary values
    a_inc = a_span/cells;
    b_inc = b_span/cells;

    %Generate arrays for alpha and beta
    Alpha = -0.01:a_inc:0.01;
    Beta = 1:b_inc:2;

    %Initialise the 2D matrix for the objective function calculation 
    LMS  = [cells,cells];

    %Calculate the objective function for each alpha and beta combination, write the result 
    %to the objective function matrix.

    for i=1:cells+1

            for j=1:cells+1
                    LMS(j,i) = LMedSq(x,y,Alpha(i),Beta(j));
            end
        end

We now produce a 3D graph of objective function landscape and output the graph to an .eps file in the home directory.

    %Render the graph
     meshc(Alpha,Beta,LMS); 

    %Set the x (alpha),y (beta) , z (objective function) axis boundary limits 
     z_low = 4 * 10^-5;
     z_hi = 8.6 * 10^-5;
     set(gca,'ZLIM',[z_low,z_hi]);

     x_low = -0.01;
     x_hi = 0.01;
     set(gca,'XLIM',[x_low,x_hi]);

     y_low = 1;
     y_hi = 2;
     set(gca,'YLIM',[y_low,y_hi]);

    %Assign the view point position  - this is a trial and error process to get the 'best' view  
     azimuth =  2;
     elevation = 26;

    %Set the position
    view([azimuth elevation])

    %Write the graph labels in Latex - add a title as required
     ylabel('\textbf{$\beta$}','fontsize',16, 'interpreter','latex');
     xlabel('\textbf{$\alpha$}','fontsize',16, 'interpreter','latex');
     zlabel('\textbf{med$(\varepsilon_{t}^2)$}','fontsize',16, 'interpreter','latex');

    %Make the graph monochrome so that it is nice and clear
    colormap(gray)

    %Output the result to file
    print -deps ssr.eps;

Here is the output. One important point to note for such graphs: they are only an illustration of the objective function landscape. They appear to show that the function values for the grid points are connected by a smooth surface, but this is not the case as even between the grid points further local minima/maxima might exist.

objfunc.pdf

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