Main Content

cylinder

Create cylinder

Description

example

[X,Y,Z] = cylinder returns three 2-by-21 matrices containing the x-, y-, and z- coordinates of a cylinder without drawing it. The cylinder has a radius of 1 and 20 equally spaced points around its circumference. The bases are parallel to the xy-plane.

To draw the cylinder, pass X, Y, and Z to the surf or mesh function.

example

[X,Y,Z] = cylinder(r) returns the x-, y-, and z- coordinates of a cylinder with the specified profile curve, r, and 20 equally spaced points around its circumference. The function treats each element in r as a radius at equally spaced heights along the unit height of the cylinder. The size of each coordinate matrix is m-by-21, where m=numel(r). However, if r is a scalar, then m=2.

[X,Y,Z] = cylinder(r,n) returns the x-, y-, and z- coordinates of a cylinder with the specified profile curve, r, and n equally spaced points around its circumference. The size of each coordinate matrix is m-by-(n+1), where m=numel(r). However, if r is a scalar, then m=2.

example

cylinder(___) plots the cylinder without returning the coordinates. Use this syntax with any of the input arguments in previous syntaxes.

cylinder(ax,___) plots into the axes specified by ax instead of the current axes. Specify the axes as the first input argument.

Examples

collapse all

Create and plot a cylinder with a radius equal to 1.

cylinder

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains an object of type surface.

Specify the radius of a cylinder by including the input r. Then, specify the height of the cylinder by modifying the returned Z coordinate.

Define X, Y, and Z as coordinates of a cylinder with a radius of 4.

r = 4;
[X,Y,Z] = cylinder(r);

Specify a height of 20 by modifying the Z coordinate. Plot the cylinder.

h = 20;
Z = Z*h;
surf(X,Y,Z)

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains an object of type surface.

Create a cylinder and use the returned coordinates to plot multiple cylinders in different locations.

Create a cylinder defined by the profile function 2 + cos(t).

t = 0:pi/10:2*pi;
r = 2 + cos(t);
[X,Y,Z] = cylinder(r);

Plot the cylinder with the base centered at the origin.

surf(X,Y,Z)

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains an object of type surface.

Plot two more cylinders on top of the first cylinder.

hold on
surf(X,Y,Z+1)
surf(X,Y,Z+2)

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains 3 objects of type surface.

Input Arguments

collapse all

Profile curve, specified as a vector. cylinder treats each element in r as a radius at equally spaced heights along the unit height of the cylinder.

Number of points around the cylinder circumference, specified as a positive whole number.

Target axes, specified as an Axes object. If you do not specify the axes, then cylinder plots into the current axes.

Version History

Introduced before R2006a

See Also

| | |