difference between imshow and pcolor

Howdy, I'm struggling to understand the different intents between imshow and pcolor. They have different
return types but both seem to do pretty much the same thing. Pcolor seems to do non-rectangular domains
and bordered pixels if you want. Is there more to the story?

TIA,
Danny

Danny Shevitz wrote:

Howdy, I'm struggling to understand the different intents between
imshow and pcolor. They have different
return types but both seem to do pretty much the same thing. Pcolor
seems to do non-rectangular domains
and bordered pixels if you want. Is there more to the story?

As I understand it, there is a fundamental internal difference: imshow
produces embedded png, while pcolor produces a collection of rectangles.
The first is less flexible, the second less efficient. I believe it is
correct to have two distinct functions for that, but it certainly could
be documented more clearly.