Three-Dimensional plotting

⏱ Quick start

The mplot3d toolkit of matplotlib is used here.

• The projection parameter of the add_subplot() function is set to 3d
• The usual scatter() function can now be called with 3 data inputs for the X, Y and Z axis
• The camera position can be set thanks to the view_init() function

Basic 3d scatterplot with Python & Matplotlib.

# libraries
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd

# Dataset
df=pd.DataFrame({'X': range(1,101), 'Y': np.random.randn(100)*15+range(1,101), 'Z': (np.random.randn(100)*15+range(1,101))*2 })

# plot
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')
ax.scatter(df['X'], df['Y'], df['Z'], c='skyblue', s=60)
ax.view_init(30, 185)
plt.show()

Three-dimensional scatterplots with Matplotlib

As described in the quick start section above, a three dimensional can be built with python thanks to themplot3d toolkit of matplotlib. The example below will guide you through its usage to get this figure:

Basic 3d scatterplot with Python & Matplotlib.

This technique is useful to visualize the result of a PCA (Principal Component Analysis). The following example explains how to run a PCA with python and check its result with a 3d scatterplot:

PCA result shown as a 3D scatterplot with python

Surface plot with Matplotlib

A surface plot considers the X and Y coordinates as latitude and longitude, and Z as the altitude. It represents the dataset as a surface by interpolating positions between data points.

This kind of chart can also be done thanks to the mplot3d toolkit of matplotlib. The posts linked below explain how to use and customize the trisurf() function that is used for surface plots.

Most basic surface plot with Python

Plotting only one half of the heatmap

Seaborn heatmap customization: grid

Basic 3d scatterplot with Python & Matplotlib.

Three dimensional plot and animation

You can build an animation from a 3d chart by changing the camera position at each iteration of a loop. The example below explains how to do it for a surface plot but visit the animation section for more.