Mesh Surface Plot in MATLAB

Mesh Surface Plot is used to depict f(X, Y, Z) in a three-dimensional space. Matlab allows users to create mesh surface plots using the mesh() method.

Different syntax of mesh() method are:

• Mesh(X, Y, Z)
• Mesh(Z)
• Mesh(___,C)
• Mesh(___, Name, Value)
• S = mesh()
• Mesh(ax,____)

Mesh(X, Y, Z)

• It plots X, Y, Z on a three-dimensional surface.
• Matrices X, Y are plotted along the x-y plane and plots matrix Z as height above the x-y plane.
• If size(Z) = [m, n], then X should be of the same size as Z or a vector of size n.
• Y should be the same size as Z or a vector of size m.

Example:

% Define matrix of size 2*10
Z = [1:10;
    1:10];
    
% Define vector Y of size 2
Y = [1 2];

% Define vector X of size 10 
X = [1:10];

% Plot mesh surface
mesh(X,Y,Z)

Output :

Mesh(Z)

It creates a mesh surface plot with matrix Z by considering column and row indices as x and y-coordinates respectively.

Example:

% Creates a random matrix of size 2*10
Z = randi(2,10);

% Plot a mesh surface
mesh(Z)

Output :

Mesh(___, C)

• It creates a mesh surface plot with the specified color of edges as C.
• C is an m-by-n-by-3 of RGB array where Z is a matrix of size m-by-n.

Example:

% Creates a meshgrids X and Y of same size
[X,Y] = meshgrid(2:.7:11);

% Create matrix Z as same size of X
Z = cos(X)./X;

% Create a color matrix
C = X.*Y;

% Plotting mesh surface
mesh(X,Y,Z,C)

Output :

Mesh(___, Name, Value)

• It creates a mesh surface plot with the specified Name-Value pair arguments.
• Some properties are Face Alpha, Edge Color, Line Style etc.

Example:

% Create meshgrids X and Y of same size
[X,Y] = meshgrid(4:.2:20);

% Create matrix Z
Z = X.*Y - sin(X);

% Create mash plot with FaceAlpha and EdgeColor
mesh(X,Y,Z,'FaceAlpha','0.5','EdgeColor','flat')

Output :

S = mesh(___)

• It creates a mesh plot with specified variables and returns the chart surface objects of the mesh plot.
• You can modify the mesh plot even after creating the plot using the variables.

Example 1:

% Creates meshgrids X and Y of same size
[X,Y] = meshgrid(1:.2:3);

% Initialize Z as of same size of X
Z = X - Y.*X;

% Plot the mesh plot with X,Y,Z of linestyle = '--'
% We can change surface properties of using variable s
s = mesh(X,Y,Z,"LineStyle",'--')

Output :

Properties of mesh plot :

Example 2:

% MATLAB code for creates meshgrids
% X and Y of same size
[X,Y] = meshgrid(1:.2:3);

% Initialize Z as of same size of X
Z = X - Y.*X;

% Plot the mesh plot with X,Y,Z of linestyle = '-' and Facecolor.
s = mesh(X,Y,Z)
s.LineStyle = '-';
s.FaceColor = '[1 0.7 0]'

Output :

Mesh(ax,______)

This function is used to specify axes in the mesh plot instead of current axes.

% MATLAB code for mesh(ax,___) %
[X,Y] = meshgrid(-10:.8:4);
R = sqrt(X.^2 + Y.^2) + eps;
Z = sin(R)./R;
mesh(axes,X,Y,Z)

Output: