Plot a surface with X Y Z data
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Ujjwal
on 15 Jul 2014
Commented: Alak A A Abduljabar
on 13 Jun 2023
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
Accepted Answer
Walter Roberson
on 11 Oct 2017
num = xlsread('Energy.xlsx');
long_energy = num(:,2);
lat_energy = num(:,1);
EE = num(:,end);
F = scatteredInterpolant(long_energy, lat_energy, EE);
min_long = min(long_energy);
min_lat = min(lat_energy);
max_long = max(long_energy);
max_lat = max(lat_energy);
proj_long = linspace(min_long, max_long, 100);
proj_lat = linspace(min_lat, max_lat, 100);
[PROJ_LONG, PROJ_LAT] = ndgrid(proj_long, proj_lat);
PROJ_EE = F(PROJ_LONG, PROJ_LAT);
surf(PROJ_LONG, PROJ_LAT, PROJ_EE, 'edgecolor', 'none');
1 Comment
Jason Burke
on 4 May 2021
I tried this approah with my own data, but when using surf, I still get the error "Z must be a matrix, not a scaler or vector".
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)
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
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
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.
0 Comments
Shubham Agrawal
on 8 Oct 2017
bump, same question - what's the best way to plot a set of X, Y and Z data?
0 Comments
Sheriza
on 1 Sep 2022
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)
0 Comments
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