Plot a surface with X Y Z data
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I am importing three different data sets from excel sheet and I want to plot the latitude, longitude on x and y axis and energy on z axis.
Whenever I import the three data-sets and use the surface function, matlab displays an error that Z must be a matrix not a scalar or vector. I am unable to rectify this as I feel the imported data is already in the form of a matrix.
Please suggest the edit to rectify the error.
PROGRAM:
close all
clear all
clc
[~,long_energy] = xlsread('Energy','B:B');
[~,lat_energy] = xlsread('Energy','A:A');
EE = xlsread('Energy', 'J:J');
lat = str2double(lat_energy);
long = str2double(long_energy);
surf(lat,long, EE);
3 Comments
Matz Johansson Bergström
on 15 Jul 2014
Could you please upload your file "Energy" so we could take a look?
Ujjwal
on 15 Jul 2014
Ujjwal
on 15 Jul 2014
Accepted Answer
More Answers (7)
Shivam Anand
on 11 May 2022
x=[32 20 67 1 98 34 57 65 24 82 47 55 8 51 13 14 18 30 37 39 10 33 21 26 38 81 83 60 95 22 17 5 72 46 99 52 12 25 96 29 70 85 43 69 19 78 97 31 89 53 2 91 48 71 61 15 36 84 94 50 11 80 6 7 49 74 9 88 40 79 27 68 73 64 63 59 86 23 35 58 45 28 100 42 93 87 16 90 41 66 54 92 77 4 62 76 75 56 3 44];
y=[96 75 24 9 83 49 27 77 3 23 17 31 40 13 7 52 51 21 98 47 64 79 78 91 44 16 15 100 84 99 63 68 70 30 54 76 97 73 33 5 88 8 71 66 62 25 60 42 72 45 18 11 28 59 89 65 10 55 69 81 12 26 20 95 87 41 74 50 93 22 43 90 14 34 82 35 56 38 80 32 1 57 6 36 37 61 29 58 2 48 4 46 67 53 92 86 94 19 39 85];
z=[55 31 11 45 83 36 86 49 15 57 42 46 8 94 88 47 54 81 98 41 32 35 56 85 9 89 37 60 23 62 67 100 78 76 73 80 10 20 68 34 77 93 1 63 53 12 22 99 91 40 84 24 33 3 43 19 92 97 6 82 64 25 26 79 95 4 44 58 5 21 70 29 65 87 96 90 51 14 18 2 72 28 71 39 52 7 27 59 50 61 48 30 66 69 17 13 74 16 75 38];
xlin = linspace(min(x), max(x), 100);
ylin = linspace(min(y), max(y), 100);
[X,Y] = meshgrid(xlin, ylin);
% Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'natural');
% Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'cubic');
Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'v4');
mesh(X,Y,Z)
axis tight; hold on
plot3(x,y,z,'.','MarkerSize',15)

1 Comment
Alak A A Abduljabar
on 13 Jun 2023
This works, Thanks!
Toby
on 10 Oct 2017
It sounds like you're looking for
scatter3(x,y,z)
https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/scatter3.html
2 Comments
Gennadij Nikitin
on 18 Sep 2019
Yes! scatter3(x,y,z) is indeed what i was looking for, thank you!
Yohana
on 2 Jan 2023
Attempt with Mat lab to produce the results shown on slides 30, 32, 37, 38, 43, 44, 48, 52, 56, 57, 59, 60, 70, 71, 72.
Azzi Abdelmalek
on 15 Jul 2014
When x, y and z are vector, you can't use surf(x,y,z). x,y and z should be matrices of the same size look at surf function. What you can do with your vectors is
plot3(lat,long, EE)
2 Comments
Ujjwal
on 15 Jul 2014
Ozan Akyildiz
on 15 Oct 2021
All you need to do for that is specifying '.' as your marker:
plot3(lat,long, EE,'.')
The rest is also just customizing your plot.
Joseph Cheng
on 15 Jul 2014
Edited: Joseph Cheng
on 15 Jul 2014
0 votes
you can try to use the interp2() function. I haven't checked your excel file but it may accomplish what you're looking for. by using your data and attempting to put it in a meshgrid format.
Shubham Agrawal
on 8 Oct 2017
0 votes
bump, same question - what's the best way to plot a set of X, Y and Z data?
Sheriza
on 1 Sep 2022
0 votes
x = [0 5 10 15 20 26 27 28 30 30 30 30 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 25 25 20 15 12 10 5 5 10 14 15 20];
y=[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 10 15 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 15 10 5 5 5 5 5 5 10 15 15 15 15 15 15 10 10 10 10 10];
Z=[13.08 13.74 11.43 22.34 25.74 20.00 12.89 26.41 19.36 19.75 17.08 22.52 21.70 18.29 25.68 24.90 22.78 12.47 17.80 13.13 20.23 14.53 10.78 17.95 22.40 15.15 10.18 14.75 19.15 14.34 12.77 23.95 24.35 4.92 18.11 14.08 24.95 22.48 18.63];
xlin = linspace(min(x), max(x), 100);
ylin = linspace(min(y), max(y), 100);
[X,Y] = meshgrid(xlin, ylin);
% Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'natural');
% Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'cubic');
Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'v4');
mesh(X,Y,Z)
axis tight; hold on
plot3(x,y,z,'.','MarkerSize',15)
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