Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Surface plots

[niles]

Hi

I have a surface plot similar to the one in the lower part found here: http://www.mathworks.se/help/techdoc/ref/surf.html

Is a way to take the data points and make a similar plot in either TikZ or PSTricks? If not, then what is the "standard" way to take such a plot and write the labels in TeX?

I hope my question is clear.

Best,
Niles.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi Niles,

tikz-3dplot is capable of generating surface plots. Perhaps have a look at Jeff's article: Drawing with the tikz-3dplot Package.

Stefan

[niles]

Hi Stefan

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll check it out.

Best,
Niles.

[feuersaenger]

Hi Niles,

you can also use pgfplots for surface plots. It features automatically scaled axes, automatically generated tick labels, axis descriptions, automatic color mapping, four coordinates for X,Y,Z, and cdata (as in matlab), flat shadin\thispagestyle{empty}g, interpolated shading and faceted shading (as in matlab), and a powerful and flexible coordinate input mechanism which supports both data files, plotting expressions, and mixtures of both.

Here is a brief example:

P.png (113.92 KiB) Viewed 5791 times

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz,pgfplots}

% this here is, in general, good practice - use the most recent
% pgfplots stable here:
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.5}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}
	\addplot3[surf] {x*y};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}
	\addplot3[surf,shader=interp] {x*y};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}