How to Troubleshoot Discrete Levels

If you run computations in the MATLAB mathematics program, you may occasionally see a “discrete levels” error message while running a calculation. This refers to a process that require only integers. If the program detects a non-integer in the system, it will deliver the error message. You can always remove non-integers manually, but if you want to keep your data intact, you can automatically add an integer-rounding function to your calculation -- to get all the numbers as discrete levels, without affecting the underlying data.

Instructions

1. Open your data set in MATLAB.

2. Type the calculation you want to perform into the input window, but do not hit Enter.

3. Place “uint8(” -- without quotes -- right before the name of your dataset in the command. Place ")” after the name. For instance, if you are working in MyData1, it would look like “uint8(MyData1)”.

4. Hit Enter. The calculation will now convert numbers to discrete-level integers as it runs, avoiding the error message.

References

• MATLAB: Typical Problems and How to Deal with Them
• MATLAB: Convert to Unsigned Integer