3D data visualization

I have an image that has some vertical lines where the data are artificially suppressed compared to the data around them. I want to present those data in a 3D plot. I have tried surface and contour plot but the problem is that the regular data overwhelms the data points in the suppressed areas. Is there a gradient-like plot to highlight the suppressed regions? I also used a quiver plot (and the gradient command) but the problem there is that I could not see the data due to the fact that the quiver did not have a color and they are too dense. Ideally i would like a mesh plot with a gradient that highlights the vertical lines but i do not know if that exists.

Answer 1

[Akanksha]

Hey Angela,

You can use a 3D surface plot combined with a gradient magnitude overlay to highlight the suppressed vertical regions. This will ensure the gradient magnitude detects sharp changes in data value which happens at the edges of suppressed lines, making them stand out visually without overwhelming the rest of the plot.

Gradient Magnitude Calculation will highlight the suppressed vertical regions by detecting sharp changes in data:

[Gx, Gy] = gradient(data); 
gradMag = sqrt(Gx.^2 + Gy.^2); 

3D Surface Plot gives the base 3D visualization of the dataset:

surf(x, y, data, 'FaceAlpha', 0.7, 'EdgeColor', 'none'); 

Overlay Gradient as Mesh overlays the gradient magnitude to visually emphasize suppressed areas:

mesh(x, y, gradMag, 'EdgeColor', 'r', 'FaceAlpha', 0.3); 

PFA the links for further reference

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/surf.html

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/surface-and-mesh-plots-1.html

Hope this helps!