Create 3D Contour Plots with Matplotlib

Introduction

In this lab, you will learn how to create a 3D contour plot using Matplotlib in Python. A contour plot is a graphical representation of the relationship between three variables. It is used to display the relationship between two variables on the x and y axes and the third variable on the z-axis. Contour plots are widely used in scientific and engineering fields to display data in a 3D space.

VM Tips

After the VM startup is done, click the top left corner to switch to the Notebook tab to access Jupyter Notebook for practice.

Sometimes, you may need to wait a few seconds for Jupyter Notebook to finish loading. The validation of operations cannot be automated because of limitations in Jupyter Notebook.

If you face issues during learning, feel free to ask Labby. Provide feedback after the session, and we will promptly resolve the problem for you.

Skills Graph

Import the Required Libraries

Before we get started, we need to import the required libraries. We will be using Matplotlib and Axes3D from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import axes3d

Create the Figure and Axes Objects

We will now create the figure and axes objects using the add_subplot() method. We will set the projection parameter to '3d' to create a 3D plot.

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')

Generate the Data

We will now generate the data to be used in the 3D contour plot. We will use the axes3d.get_test_data() method to generate the data. This method generates test data for a 3D plot.

X, Y, Z = axes3d.get_test_data(0.05)

Create the Contour Plot

We will now create the contour plot using the contourf() method. This method creates filled contours. We will set the cmap parameter to cm.coolwarm to use the cool-warm color map.

ax.contourf(X, Y, Z, cmap=cm.coolwarm)

Display the Plot

We will now display the plot using the show() method.

plt.show()

Summary

In this lab, you learned how to create a 3D contour plot using Matplotlib in Python. You learned how to import the required libraries, create the figure and axes objects, generate the data, create the contour plot, and display the plot. Contour plots are an effective way to display data in a 3D space, and they are widely used in scientific and engineering fields.