3D plot using equation with x and y

Question

I'd like to create a 3D plot from an equation with x and y, similar to Google's 3D graph.

An example:

input: sin(sqrt(x**2 + y**2))

output (3D plot):

The Z will obviously be equal to the given input, but how will x and y be calculated? Thanks for any help given!

Answer 1

You can start by creating a meshgrid for your X and Y. Then compute your Z by doing Z=np.sin(np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2)). Finally, you can plot the surface by using the matplotlib function ax.plot_surface(X, Y, Z).

You can find the code below:

import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D

N_points=100
x = np.linspace(-10, 10, N_points)  
y = np.linspace(-10, 10, N_points)  
  
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, y)
Z=np.sin(np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2))

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(projection='3d')

ax.plot_surface(X, Y, Z)

ax.set_xlabel('X')
ax.set_ylabel('Y')
ax.set_zlabel('Z')
plt.show()

And the output of this code gives: