How does one set a logarithmic scale in a ContourPlot?

Question

How does one set a logarithmic scale for both x and y axes in ContourPlot in Mathematica?

Answer 1

One possibility is to plot the contour plot with linear scales using ContourPlot and use ListLogLogPlot to transform this plot to one with logarithmic scales:

pl = Normal@
  ContourPlot[
   Sin[3 x] + Cos[3 y] == 1/2, {x, .01 Pi, 3 Pi}, {y, .01 Pi, 3 Pi}, 
   PlotPoints -> 30]

ListLogLogPlot[Cases[pl, Line[a_, b___] :> a, Infinity], 
 Joined -> True, Frame -> True, PlotRange -> All, AspectRatio -> 1, 
 PlotStyle -> ColorData[1][1]]

Answer 2

Instead of doing some transformation on the original ContourPlot we can do an exponential rescaling of the original variables in the ContourPlot, so this is somewhat different approach to get roughly the same result :

ContourPlot[ Sin[ 3 Exp@x] + Cos[ 3 Exp@y ] == 1/2, 
             {x, Log[0.01 Pi], Log[3 Pi]}, {y, Log[0.01 Pi], Log[3 Pi]}, PlotPoints -> 30]

The only difference is a different coordinate system.

Answer 3

As a slight variation of the nice suggestion above add FrameTicks to get the tick labels you want.

ContourPlot[
 Sin[3 Exp[x]] + Cos[3 Exp[y]] == 1/2, {x, Log[0.01 Pi], 
  Log[3 Pi]}, {y, Log[0.01 Pi], Log[3 Pi]}, PlotPoints -> 30, 
 FrameTicks -> {Table[{y, ToString[Round[10^y, 0.001]]}, {y, 
     Log[10, 0.001], Log[10, 100]}], 
   Table[{y, ToString[Round[10^y, 0.001]]}, {y, Log[10, 0.001], 
     Log[10, 100]}]}]