Writing Code for Surface Plots?

MySchizoBuddy asks: "In what ways can you code plots of surface charts using a z(x,y) function or a cloud of points? I'm looking for a tutorial that explains this that doesn't use DirectX or OpenGL libraries (the language I'm using cannot use either framework anyway). How is the 3D mess generated and how can the 2D contour plots be generated as well? I'm assuming once I know that I can also use it to make torus plots as well. Remember, I'm asking for the explanation of the underlying math and an example code that does that. The GNUPlot gallery has some examples that I find helpful, but are there similar examples out there? (Remember, I am writing the plotting code as well)? Can anyone help or point me in the right direction?"

Comments

MATLAB

[Bob_Geldof]

just a thought, but why not use MATLAB. You can sometimes use it to make stand-alone programs and maybe even DLLs. then add it to your code. I help develop code for a Cray X1 and all visualization (for my project) is done locally using MATLAB. It's pretty beefy, but it'll make a contour plot.

Re:Basic Rundown

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Regarding point #2 and #3, if he's just plotting points to make a graph, fancy perspective may not be needed. Just throw away the Z coordinate after rotation, and plot the X and Y in 2D.

Also, if you're rotating the graph in real-time, don't rotate the points a degree, plot, and rotate another degree and plot, and so on.

Save the original set of points. Rotate them one degree and plot. Throw those results away, start with the original set and rotate them two degrees and plot. Repeat, rotating only the original set each time. You'll save a lot of trouble from accumulating floating point errors.