[Tex/LaTex] ny way to remove mesh lines completely in a pgfplots faceted 3d plot

3dgridspgfplots

I can not seem to find the way to remove the lines in the surface mesh in a 3d faceted plot. I need a solution that does not use the "shader=interp" (i.e. gradient filling) so that the faces are constant in color.

For example the following code generates white lines in Acrobat (see at the end). I tried all sorts of tricks, such as "faceted color = none, draw opacity=0., line width=0., draw=none". I made the surface semitransparent so the effect is evident.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}
\addplot3[surf, opacity=0.8, shader=faceted, faceted color = none, draw opacity=0., line width=0.,draw=none] %shader interp offends lualatex
coordinates {
(-3, -3, 3.57005)(-2.8125, -3, 3.50682)(-2.625, -3, 3.4438)\par
(-3, -2.8125, 3.5075)(-2.8125, -2.8125, 3.44005)(-2.625, -2.8125, 3.37252)\par
(-3, -2.625, 3.4453)(-2.8125, -2.625, 3.37336)(-2.625, -2.625, 3.301)\par
(-3, -2.4375, 3.38377)(-2.8125, -2.4375, 3.3071)(-2.625, -2.4375, 3.22959)\par
}; 
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Look at the white lines:

whitelines as mesh

(Is this perhaps a bug in Acrobat?, evince shows the desired result for example)

EDIT: one of the comments states that flat should give a flat color and no lines around the patches. The result with

\addplot3[surf, opacity=0.8, shader=flat]

is that lines still appear in the borders, here with Acrobat and evince

Acrobat flat
evince flat

Best Answer

The problem is the combination between the chosen shader=flat and opacity: deactivate opacity and you do not see any edges.

Internally, the shader draws surface segments "on top of each other". It simply paints them (with fill and stroke). But since adjacent surface segments share edges, these edges are used twice for the opacity computation, resulting in different colors.

I believe this is inherent to shader=flat, there is no simple solution here (except fooling around with different fill opacity and draw opacity perhaps).

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to remove coordinates in a 3d plot using pgfplots

The default configuration of unbounded coords=discard which will silently discard input coordinates as if they have not appeared at all.

What you need is unbounded coords=jump: in this case, each patch with an unbounded coordinate will be tracked, but not drawn at all:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.5}

\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[clip=false,view={45}{45},grid=major]
\addplot3[surf,mesh/rows=3,shader=flat,unbounded coords=jump,draw=black] coordinates {
(1,1,0)(1,2,5)(1,3,7)
(2,1,nan)(2,2,0)(2,3,4)
(3,1,nan)(3,2,nan)(3,3,0)};
\addplot3 coordinates {(1,1,0) (3,3,0)};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[clip=false,view={45}{45},grid=major]
\addplot3[surf,unbounded coords=jump,shader=flat,draw=black] coordinates {
(1,1,0)(1,2,5)(1,3,7)

(2,1,0)(2,2,0)(2,3,4)

(3,1,nan)(3,2,0)(3,3,0)};
\addplot3 coordinates {(1,1,0) (3,3,0)};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

enter image description here

So, what you need is to get a smaller resolution in order to resolve your wholes.

Maybe patch type=triangle would be a good idea as well since you have a diagonal cut - but you would need to adjust the input format of you coordinates accordingly.

[Tex/LaTex] plotting two time series with bounds

This happens because PGFPlots only uses one "stack" per axis: You're stacking the second confidence interval on top of the first. The easiest way to fix this is probably to use the approach described in "Is there an easy way of using line thickness as error indicator in a plot?": After plotting the first confidence interval, stack the upper bound on top again, using stack dir=minus. That way, the stack will be reset to zero, and you can draw the second confidence interval in the same fashion as the first:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplots, tikz}

\usepackage{pgfplotstable}

\pgfplotstableread{
temps   y_h y_h__inf    y_h__sup    y_f y_f__inf    y_f__sup    

1   0.237340    0.135170    0.339511    0.237653    0.135482    0.339823    
2   0.561320    0.422007    0.700633    0.165871    0.026558    0.305184    
3   0.694760    0.534205    0.855314    0.074856    -0.085698   0.235411    
4   0.728306    0.560179    0.896432    0.003361    -0.164765   0.171487    
5   0.711710    0.544944    0.878477    -0.044582   -0.211349   0.122184    
6   0.671241    0.511191    0.831291    -0.073347   -0.233397   0.086703    
7   0.621177    0.471219    0.771135    -0.088418   -0.238376   0.061540    
8   0.569354    0.431826    0.706882    -0.094382   -0.231910   0.043146    
9   0.519973    0.396571    0.643376    -0.094619   -0.218022   0.028783    
10  0.475121    0.366990    0.583251    -0.091467   -0.199598   0.016664    
}{\table}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}

    \begin{axis}
    % y_h confidence interval
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=none, draw=none, forget plot]   table [x=temps, y=y_h__inf]   {\table} \closedcycle;
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=gray!50, opacity=0.4, draw opacity=0, area legend]   table [x=temps, y expr=\thisrow{y_h__sup}-\thisrow{y_h__inf}]   {\table} \closedcycle;
    % subtract the upper bound so our stack is back at zero
    \addplot [stack plots=y, stack dir=minus, forget plot, draw=none] table [x=temps, y=y_h__sup] {\table};

    % y_f confidence interval
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=none, draw=none, forget plot]   table [x=temps, y=y_f__inf]   {\table} \closedcycle;
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=gray!50, opacity=0.4, draw opacity=0, area legend]   table [x=temps, y expr=\thisrow{y_f__sup}-\thisrow{y_f__inf}]   {\table} \closedcycle;

    % the line plots (y_h and y_f)    
    \addplot [stack plots=false, very thick,smooth,blue]  table [x=temps, y=y_h]   {\table};
    \addplot [stack plots=false, very thick,smooth,blue]  table [x=temps, y=y_f]   {\table};
    \end{axis}

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to remove coordinates in a 3d plot using pgfplots

[Tex/LaTex] plotting two time series with bounds

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