Can surf or plot3 be modified to vary in x or y but not z?

Hi all,

If I generate a grid, e.g.:

x = [1:11];
z = ones(length(x));
surf(z)
xlabel('X');set(get(gca,'xlabel'),'rotation',10); 
ylabel('Y');set(get(gca,'ylabel'),'rotation',-10);
zlabel('Z')

to give:

please, how can I vary in the x-direction? Instead of having 11 straight y-axis lines, I'd like each line to be irregular (haphazard profiles), showing variations in x.

I can vary in the z-direction by using, e.g.:

x = [-83,-19,38,61,53,23,-5,-25,-23,-13,-6];
for i = 1:length(x);
    z(i,:) = x.*rand(1,length(x));
end
surf(z)
xlabel('X');set(get(gca,'xlabel'),'rotation',10); 
ylabel('Y');set(get(gca,'ylabel'),'rotation',-10);
zlabel('Z')

to give:

but I'm having a hard time varying in x or y.

Thanks, Mike.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You can pass surf() a matrix of X and Y points. For example,

y = sort([-83,-19,38,61,53,23,-5,-25,-23,-13,-6]);
[X, Y] = ndgrid(1:11, y);
X = X + randn(size(X));
Y = Y + randn(size(Y));
Z = X.^2 + exp(sin(Y));
surf(X,Y,Z);

[Mike]

Thanks Walter!

[Mike]

Hi Walter (or anyone else),

Is there a way to represent X, Y, and Z by just one matrix?

E.g., X, Y, and Z, are each 11 x 11 matrices, and surf(X,Y,Z) generates a 3D surface map. If I have PLAT (an 11 x 11 matrix), surf(PLAT) also generates a 3D surface map. I'd like to add PLAT to (X,Y,Z). Please, how can I represent (X,Y,Z) by an 11 x 11 matrix, or is there a better way to add them?

Thanks!