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Splot overview

splot can display a surface as a collection of points, or by connecting those points. As with plot, the points may be read from a data file or result from evaluation of a function at specified intervals, see set isosamples (p. [*]). The surface may be approximated by connecting the points with straight line segments, see set surface (p. [*]), in which case the surface can be made opaque with set hidden3d. The orientation from which the 3d surface is viewed can be changed with set view.

Additionally, for points in a grid format, splot can interpolate points having a common amplitude (see set contour (p. [*])) and can then connect those new points to display contour lines, either directly with straight-line segments or smoothed lines (see set cntrparam (p. [*])). Functions are already evaluated in a grid format, determined by set isosamples and set samples, while file data must either be in a grid format, as described in data-file, or be used to generate a grid (see set dgrid3d (p. [*])).

Contour lines may be displayed either on the surface or projected onto the base. The base projections of the contour lines may be written to a file, and then read with plot, to take advantage of plot's additional formatting capabilities.


next up previous contents index
Next: System Up: Splot Previous: Grid data   Contents   Index
Ethan Merritt 2007-03-03