surface (MATLAB Functions)

Create surface object

Syntax

surface(Z)
surface(Z,C)
surface(X,Y,Z)
surface(X,Y,Z,C)
surface(...'PropertyName',PropertyValue,...)
h = surface(...)

Description

surface is the low-level function for creating surface graphics objects. Surfaces are plots of matrix data created using the row and column indices of each element as the x- and y-coordinates and the value of each element as the z-coordinate.

surface(Z) plots the surface specified by the matrix Z. Here, Z is a single-valued function, defined over a geometrically rectangular grid.

surface(Z,C) plots the surface specified by Z and colors it according to the data in C (see "Examples").

surface(X,Y,Z) uses C = Z, so color is proportional to surface height above the x-y plane.

surface(X,Y,Z,C) plots the parametric surface specified by X, Y, and Z, with color specified by C.

surface(x,y,Z), surface(x,y,Z,C) replaces the first two matrix arguments with vectors and must have length(x) = n and length(y) = m where [m,n] = size(Z). In this case, the vertices of the surface facets are the triples (x(j),y(i),Z(i,j)). Note that x corresponds to the columns of Z and y corresponds to the rows of Z. For a complete discussion of parametric surfaces, see the surf function.

surface(...'PropertyName',PropertyValue,...) follows the X, Y, Z, and C arguments with property name/property value pairs to specify additional surface properties.

h = surface(...) returns a handle to the created surface object.

Remarks

surface does not respect the settings of the figure and axes NextPlot properties. It simply adds the surface object to the current axes.

If you do not specify separate color data (C), MATLAB uses the matrix (Z) to determine the coloring of the surface. In this case, color is proportional to values of Z. You can specify a separate matrix to color the surface independently of the data defining the area of the surface.

You can specify properties as property name/property value pairs, structure arrays, and cell arrays (see set and get for examples of how to specify these data types).

surface provides convenience forms that allow you to omit the property name for the XData, YData, ZData, and CData properties. For example,

surface('XData',X,'YData',Y,'ZData',Z,'CData',C)

is equivalent to

```
surface(X,Y,Z,C)
```

When you specify only a single matrix input argument,

```
surface(Z)
```

MATLAB assigns the data properties as if you specified

surface('XData',[1:size(Z,2)],...
       'YData',[1:size(Z,1)],...
       'ZData',Z,...
       'CData',Z)

The axis, caxis, colormap, hold, shading, and view commands set graphics properties that affect surfaces. You can also set and query surface property values after creating them using the set and get commands.

Example

This example creates a surface using the peaks M-file to generate the data, and colors it using the clown image. The ZData is a 49-by-49 element matrix, while the CData is a 200-by-320 matrix. You must set the surface's FaceColor to texturemap to use ZData and CData of different dimensions.

load clown
surface(peaks,flipud(X),...
        'FaceColor','texturemap',...
        'EdgeColor','none',...
        'CDataMapping','direct')
colormap(map)
view(-35,45)

Note the use of the surface(Z,C) convenience form combined with property name/property value pairs.

Since the clown data (X) is typically viewed with the image command, which MATLAB normally displays with 'ij' axis numbering and direct CDataMapping, this example reverses the data in the vertical direction using flipud and sets the CDataMapping property to direct.

Object Hierarchy

Setting Default Properties

You can set default surface properties on the axes, figure, and root levels:

set(0,'DefaultSurfaceProperty',PropertyValue...)
set(gcf,'DefaultSurfaceProperty',PropertyValue...)
set(gca,'DefaultSurfaceProperty',PropertyValue...)

where Property is the name of the surface property whose default value you want to set and PropertyValue is the value you are specifying. Use set and get to access the surface properties.

See Also

ColorSpec, patch, pcolor, surf

Properties for surface graphics objects

Repersenting a Matrix as a Surface for examples

Creating Surfaces and Meshes and Object Creation Functions for related functions

Surface Properties for property descriptions

surf2patch Surface Properties