MATLAB: Plot surfaces with random peaks

3dMATLABsurfsurface

I'm working on a project where I want to run random walks on 3D surfaces with multiple peaks. In order to do this, I'm looking for a good way to generate surfaces with random peaks. It'd be preferred that they are continuous surfaces and resemble an actual landscape. I found the 'peaks' function of Matlab especially helpful. I also cannot have valleys, but a simple changing of signs of the variable 'z' wherever it was negative gave me a pretty good landscape.

Are there any other ways that I can create such surfaces in Matlab? In the best case, I'd have a function where changing a few parameters can give me surfaces with peaks at random locations and random heights. But any help in this direction is much appreciated. Thank you.

Best Answer

What about griddata?

x = rand(20,1);
y = rand(20,1);
z = rand(20,1);
[x1,y1] = meshgrid(0:0.05:1);
z1 = griddata(x,y,z,x1,y1,'cubic');
plot3(x,y,z,'.r')
surface(x1,y1,z1)

Related Solutions

MATLAB: Derivative of a function

(z - z1).*(z - z2).*(z - z3).*(z - z4) + (z - z1).*(z - z2).*(z - z3).*(z - z5) + (z - z1).*(z - z2).*(z - z4).*(z - z5) + (z - z1).*(z - z3).*(z - z4).*(z - z5) + (z - z2).*(z - z3).*(z - z4).*(z - z5)

MATLAB: Two planes cutting each other

One option is to set x, y, and z values to NaN if they do not fall in the appropriate region:

[x1, z1] = meshgrid(linspace(0,1,500));
y1 = sqrt(x1);
[x2, y2] = meshgrid(linspace(0,1,500));
z2 = 1 - y2;
i1 = y1+z1>1;
i2 = y2<sqrt(x2);
x1(i1) = NaN;
y1(i1) = NaN;
z1(i1) = NaN;
surf(x1,y1,z1,'FaceColor','b','FaceAlpha',0.5,'EdgeColor','none');
hold on;
x2(i2) = NaN;
y2(i2) = NaN;
z2(i2) = NaN;
surf(x2,y2,z2,'FaceColor','b','FaceAlpha',0.3,'EdgeColor','none');
view([120 30])
zlim([0 1.5]);
ylim([0 1.5]);
xlim([0 1.5]);
xlabel('x','FontSize',20);
ylabel('y','FontSize',20);
zlabel('z','FontSize',20);

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: Derivative of a function

MATLAB: Two planes cutting each other

Related Question