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Matlab-Plotting 3d Spheres PDF

This document provides an example of how to plot multiple spheres in Matlab using the sphere function and surf/mesh functions. It demonstrates how to: 1) Generate the x, y, z coordinates of a unit sphere using the sphere function; 2) Create a matrix to define the center point and radius of each sphere; 3) Use surf to plot each sphere based on the values in the matrix; 4) Add additional spheres by adding rows to the matrix and using hold to overlay plots.

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DrSaurabh Tewari
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252 views

Matlab-Plotting 3d Spheres PDF

This document provides an example of how to plot multiple spheres in Matlab using the sphere function and surf/mesh functions. It demonstrates how to: 1) Generate the x, y, z coordinates of a unit sphere using the sphere function; 2) Create a matrix to define the center point and radius of each sphere; 3) Use surf to plot each sphere based on the values in the matrix; 4) Add additional spheres by adding rows to the matrix and using hold to overlay plots.

Uploaded by

DrSaurabh Tewari
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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An Example of Plotting Spheres in Matlab

This example will produce this 3-D plot.

Figure 1. Plot of spheres in Matlab created using the sphere function.


The Matlab function sphere generates the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of a unit
sphere for use with surf and mesh. Surf and Mesh are two functions that generate
plots in 3-d, where surf will create a 3-d surface plot and mesh will create a wireframe
mesh in 3-d. For this example we will be using the surf function.
To use the sphere function it must be called in the m-file as
In the command window type [x y z] = sphere;
Since Matlab is matrix based math we need to create a 1 row, 4 column matrix
representing the coordinates of the sphere (shown in figure 2).

Figure 2. A 1 x 4 matrix representing the coordinates of the sphere.

Where the first column of the matrix represents the x coordinate, the second column
represents the y coordinate, the third column represents the z coordinate and the
fourth column will represent the radius of the sphere. Typing in the code
a=[3 3 3 3]

will return a 1 x 4 matrix as shown in figure 2. The next step is to plot the sphere using
surf. The code of the plotting line will read
s1=surf(x*a(1,4)+a(1,1),y*a(1,4)+a(1,2),z*a(1,4)+a(1,3));

where s1 is the variable assigned to sphere 1, x, y and z are the variables x, y and z, a(1,4)
represents the number in matrix a in row 1 and column 4 and denotes the radius of the
sphere. a(1,1) represents the number in row 1 and column1 of matrix a and is the xcoordinate of the center of the sphere. The matlab code should now read
clc
clear
[x y z] = sphere;
a=[3 3 3 3]
s1=surf(x*a(1,4)+a(1,1),y*a(1,4)+a(1,2),z*a(1,4)+a(1,3));
daspect([1 1 1])
view(30,10)

daspect([ 1 1 1]) changes the scale on each axis to 1 and view(30,10) twists the view
around the z-axis. When ran, this code will produce a plot as shown in figure 3.

Figure 3. Plot of 1 sphere centered at coordinate (3,3,3) with radius of 3.

To make another sphere in the same plot the hold function must be executed
prior to the next plot. The matrix must also be updated with a new row representing the
second sphere. Matrix a with 2 rows and 4 columns is shown next.
a=[3 3 3 3;-3 -3 -3 3]

where the semicolon denotes a new row within the matrix. A new surf must be inserted
with reference to the correct number in the matrix a. The code for this is shown next.
clc
clear
[x y z] = sphere;
a=[3 3 3 3;-3 -3 -3 3]
s1=surf(x*a(1,4)+a(1,1),y*a(1,4)+a(1,2),z*a(1,4)+a(1,3));
hold on
s2=surf(x*a(2,4)+a(2,1),y*a(2,4)+a(2,2),z*a(2,4)+a(2,3));
daspect([1 1 1])
view(30,10)

When ran, this code produces a plot shown in figure 4.

Figure 4. Plot of 2 spheres of radius 3 with one centered at (-3,-3,-3) and the other
centered at (3,3,3).

To make another sphere with a smaller radius, simply insert another column into
matrix a with a different radius (the number in row 3 column 4) and a new surf as
shown next.
clc
clear
[x y z] = sphere;
a=[3 3 3 3;-3 -3 -3 3;0 4 -2 2]
s1=surf(x*a(1,4)+a(1,1),y*a(1,4)+a(1,2),z*a(1,4)+a(1,3));
hold on
s2=surf(x*a(2,4)+a(2,1),y*a(2,4)+a(2,2),z*a(2,4)+a(2,3));
s3=surf(x*a(3,4)+a(3,1),y*a(3,4)+a(3,2),z*a(3,4)+a(3,3));
daspect([1 1 1])
view(30,10)

The plot for this code is shown in figure 5.

Figure 5. Plot of 3 spheres where, 2 have radii of 3 and one has a radius of 2.
To make more spheres simply add more columns to the matrix a and more
surfs to plot each extra sphere as shown next.
clc
clear
[x y z] = sphere;

a=[3 3 3 3;-3 -3 -3 3;0 4 -2 2;0 0 0 1;-8 -7 1 1]


s1=surf(x*a(1,4)+a(1,1),y*a(1,4)+a(1,2),z*a(1,4)+a(1,3));
hold on
s2=surf(x*a(2,4)+a(2,1),y*a(2,4)+a(2,2),z*a(2,4)+a(2,3));
s3=surf(x*a(3,4)+a(3,1),y*a(3,4)+a(3,2),z*a(3,4)+a(3,3));
s4=surf(x*a(4,4)+a(4,1),y*a(4,4)+a(4,2),z*a(4,4)+a(4,3));
s5=surf(x*a(5,4)+a(5,1),y*a(5,4)+a(5,2),z*a(5,4)+a(5,3));
daspect([1 1 1])
view(30,10)

The plot for this code is shown in figure 1.

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