[SciPy-User] creating a 3D surface plot from collected data

[Gael Varoquaux]

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 03:13:47PM -0500, Rob Clewley wrote:
> Gael, maybe we misunderstand each other! My data is actually very
> smooth, it's just that it's not aligned on a regular mesh already.
> It's ordered temporally as a single curve that is wrapping itself
> around a solid object's surface.

Yes, the example I point to shows how to reconstruct a surface from
unconnected point, so I would think that it applies to your problem.

HTH,

Gaël

> -Rob

> On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 11:07 AM, Gael Varoquaux
> <gael.varoquaux at normalesup.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 10:19:32AM -0500, Rob Clewley wrote:
> >> I too have some data that has multiple z values in the x,y  domain.
> >> Worse, my data is not remotely arranged in a proper grid as it is
> >> temporal trajectory data from a 3D ODE that winds itself round and
> >> round the surface, like a very carefully wrapped mummy. I.e., it
> >> doesn't wrap back over itself.

> >> I'm not familiar with 3D plotting techniques and trying to set up the
> >> plot of my surface in mayavi or matplotlib is not working along the
> >> lines of standard cookbook examples. I cannot find appropriate
> >> information online on how to plot the surface if I can't run the
> >> interpolator for data that's not a function of (x,y) and my data needs
> >> "alignment".

> > Would this example help:
> > http://code.enthought.com/projects/mayavi/docs/development/html/mayavi/auto/example_surface_from_irregular_data.html