3D Plot on a Spherical Surface

Plots 3D data on a sphere.

Description

SPHERE3D plots 3D data on a spherical surface. Useful particularly in metrology of spherical surfaces, spherical wavefronts and wavefields.

SPHERE3D(Zin,theta_min,theta_max,phi_min,phi_max,Rho,meshscale)plots the 3D profile Zin as a mesh plot on a spherical surface of radius Rho, between horizontal sweep angles theta_min and theta_max and vertical phi_min and phi_max, with mesh size determined by meshscale.
 
SPHERE3D(Zin,...,meshscale,plotspec)plots the 3D profile Zin with a plot type specification. If plotspec = 'surf' a standard surface is plotted, whereas 'mesh', or 'meshc'will plot mesh,or mesh with contour, respectively. A special contour is plotted when plotspec = 'contour'. The default is mesh if not specified.

SPHERE3D(Zin,...,meshscale,interpspec)plots the 3D profile Zin with the interpolation specification, interpspec, which can be one of 'spline', 'linear', 'nearest' or 'cubic'. The default interpolation is linear if not specified.

SPHERE3D(Zin,...,meshscale,Zscale)plots the 3D profile Zin with the data scaling factor, Zscale. This allows you to scale the peaks and troughs of the data on the surface if the radius is relatively large. Zscale larger than 1 magnifies the data range. Zscale defaults to 1 if not specified.
 
[Xout,Yout,Zout,Cmap] = SPHERE3D(Zin,...) returns output values corresponding to the Cartesian positions (Xout,Yout,Zout) with colour map, Cmap.

• Acknowledgements: This submission has inspired the following:; NF2FF
• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.0.1 (R14SP1)
• Other requirements: Not tested on versions below V7 R14. Please email author if problems develop.

[e k]

Excellent work.
I was doing this for a days.

[O K]

I had some problems with contour plot,

sphere3d(P,-pi,pi,-pi/2,pi/2,R,0.25,'contour','spline',0);

??? In an assignment A(matrix,matrix) = B, the number of rows in B
and the number of elements in the A row index matrix must be the same.

Error in ==> Code\sphere3d.m
On line 544 ==> x(1:num,nLevel) = C(1,2:num+1);

[Derek Wilson]

This is an excellent program, and while I've found just a couple bugs, they're easily fixed if you're familiar with MATLAB. I've found this program very helpful for plotting antenna patterns.

To: O K (dellankara)

On line 544, if you'll change
"x(1:num,nLevel)=C(1,2:num+1);"
to
"x(1:num,nLevel)=C(1,2:num+1).';"

it fixes the problem. Hope this helps!

[lily lin]

 

[Scott B.]

Great work. Thanks.

[Raghu Settaluri]

Excellent Program!

[L Pir]

Very useful function and also a good documentation.
Thanks!

[Thomas]

 

[Thomas]

 

[Thomas]

Please confirm following correction:
help sphere3d:
INPUT Zin:
Zin(M,1) corresponds to (theta_max,phi_max)
Zin(1,N) corresponds to (theta_min,phi_min)
Best regards
Thomas

[Martin Fuchs]

Hey, I had some problems plotting earth in 3D. The interpolation does not interpolate between 0 and 2pi. Therefore I get always a stripe at the 0 degree meridean. can some one fix that problem ?

[Mark Zang]

Excellent work. Thanks a lot.