Questions on the construction of 2D and 3D graphics through the direct use of primitives, directives, and functions. Include the graphics3d tag for questions specifically on 3D graphics. This tag is not to be used for basic questions on visualizing functions and lists using the various flavors of ...
73
votes
3answers
8k views
How to create word clouds?
Word clouds are rather useless fancy and visually appealing plots, where words are plotted with different sizes according to their frequency in a corpus. Many applications exist out there (Wordle, ...
49
votes
8answers
11k views
How to make an inkblot?
How to effectively create a polygon that looks like a realistic inkblot? So far, I could come up with this (borrowing from Ed Pegg Jr.'s Rorschach demonstration):
...
48
votes
2answers
2k views
How to manipulate 2D plots?
When it comes to visual analysis, large datasets or data with intricate internal details often makes plotting in 2D useless, as the outcome is either just a fraction of the full dataset, or no details ...
46
votes
2answers
41k views
Cutting bagels into linked halves
I recently came across this video: Mathematically correct breakfast, which shows how a bagel can be neatly sliced into two identical linked halves.
I'd like to try this with Mathematica. Here's a ...
44
votes
5answers
4k views
Exporting graphics to PDF - huge file
I want to draw some basic surfaces, export them to PDF and include them in a LaTeX file. I create a simple 3D graphics object, for instance with
...
44
votes
5answers
4k views
$\LaTeX$ and Mathematica
I quite often would like to draw graphics in my $\LaTeX$ documents using Mathematica. I have encountered three problems. I would like to know if there are any workarounds to these problems
I would ...
40
votes
6answers
4k views
40
votes
3answers
2k views
Recovering data points from an image
Unfortunately, some data can only be obtained in picture form (Japanese publications anyone?). Since this cannot be worked with, it has to be converted to a dataset that can; I was wondering whether ...
38
votes
1answer
1k views
Implementing a first person view of 3D objects in a scene
I've created the following scene with a Chinese-style building surrounded by trees, and a horse and a rabbit grazing on the grass in Mathematica (don't ask me why there's a bust of Beethoven in ...
35
votes
3answers
11k views
How to create new “person curve”?
Wolfram|Alpha has a whole collection¹ of parametric curves that create images of famous people. To see them, enter WolframAlpha["person curve"] into a Mathematica ...
34
votes
5answers
1k views
Creating ghost trail effects
Does anyone know how to create a ghost trail effect? For a simple example look at this screenshot:
You can find the actual animation here. What I would ultimately like to see it happen is to make ...
32
votes
2answers
802 views
Extract values for ViewMatrix from a Graphics3D
Under More Information in the help page of ViewMatrix the following entry can be found
With the setting ...
32
votes
0answers
739 views
How to construct a treemap using non-rectangles?
I've written the standard version of a tree map (a graphic that shows nested data) and I'm looking to improve on this layout by switching to different types of polygons or perhaps circles. Can anyone ...
31
votes
4answers
1k views
Speeding up this fractal-generating code
I used the code below (which is a sample from this gist containing more similar code) in my answer to my own question about Mandelbrot-like sets for functions other than the simple quadratic on ...
31
votes
1answer
707 views
Constructing election cartograms?
I found this pretty neat page showing cartograms for the US elections and I don't really know how to get started doing these graphics in Mathematica. For those who don't know, a cartogram is a map in ...
30
votes
5answers
2k views
How can this image (optical illusion) be created with Mathematica?
I came across this image the other day:
and liked the sensation of it pulsing. I was wondering if anyone would know how to create something similar with Mathematica (without the Pink Floyd Dark ...
30
votes
5answers
912 views
Rotating an image along a Möbius strip?
I am trying to make a GIF which will be a rotating Möbius strip, with some text printed along its (one!) side. I am trying to (obviously) do this in Mathematica.
After some diligent searching and a ...
29
votes
6answers
3k views
How can I draw the Olympic rings with Mathematica?
How can I draw the 5 interlocking Olympic rings with Mathematica?
(SVG version)
Edit
Hard choice, but some pretty cool answers here. I didn't have 3D answers in mind when I posted the question ...
29
votes
7answers
963 views
29
votes
1answer
645 views
How can all those tiny polygons generated by RegionPlot be joined into a single FilledCurve?
RegionPlot will usually generate a large number of tiny polygons for filling the region:
...
28
votes
8answers
1k views
Animating mathematica.se logo
As we all know our site's logo was completely generated by Mathematica. I suppose it is quite natural to make the next step -- to generate the animated version of this logo. There's a lot of space for ...
28
votes
6answers
2k views
Intersecting graphics
Does the Mathematica graphics system have any concept of intersecting graphics? I've not found much in the documents so far. For example, if I want to show the intersection of two shapes:
...
27
votes
4answers
766 views
Factorisation diagrams
Here is a way to visualize the factorisation of natural numbers. How do we get this or a similar kind of output using Mathematica?
See the list of images generated for number from 1 to 36:
27
votes
4answers
701 views
27
votes
2answers
840 views
Animating a Voronoi Diagram
edit: Excellent answers have been provided and I made an animation which is suitable for my use, however, all the examples rely on bitmap/rasterized data; is there a vector based approach?
I would ...
25
votes
5answers
2k views
Custom arrow shaft
Inspired by Sjoerd C. de Vries' nice answer to this question, and the desire to pimp a Graph I did with Mathematica recently I would like to know if there are ways to customize the arrow's shaft ...
25
votes
5answers
2k views
How can I extract data points from a black and white image?
Consider the following graph (source):
Is there any way to extract the data points from this image in a semi-automatic way? I have seen, and tried the methods suggested in this question, but they ...
24
votes
5answers
708 views
Create magnified call-out loupe effect on image
I'm trying to create a Mathematica Manipulate that generates a graphical call-out using a 'loupe'-style or magnifying glass enlarger - a possible solution is shown ...
24
votes
5answers
1k views
Filling a polygon with a pattern of insets
I am trying to fill a shape with diagonal lines. I am aware of Texture, but it rasterizes the fill pattern, which is not desirable. Here was my crack at it:
...
24
votes
2answers
820 views
Mollweide maps in Mathematica
Context
In my field of research, many people use the following package: healpix (for Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelization)
which has been ported to a few different languages (F90, C,C++, ...
24
votes
3answers
431 views
How can I make points “glow”?
I have a set of points in the plane which I would like to have "glow". I would like for each point to glow individually and I would also like some increase in the intensity corresponding to an ...
24
votes
1answer
305 views
Tool to locate bloat in a notebook?
In developing a notebook, I often find I have created a very boated file that takes a long time to save. I would like to slim it down. It is usually the result of graphics and images, but they may be ...
23
votes
4answers
1k views
How to create this four-dimensional cube animation?
This is a tesseract, a four-dimensional cube, which contains two cubes. Here, each side length of the smaller one is 1, while the side length of the bigger one is 2. How do make I it?
I am still ...
23
votes
5answers
746 views
How can I wrap text around a circle?
How can I wrap text around a circle?
For example: the text in the sectors of this chord plot.
Perhaps one could use FilledCurve[] and then apply a ...
23
votes
1answer
229 views
Is there a way to access the (lexically) current colour inside Graphics?
Note that this is not a duplicate of the question over there. That one asks for a given point, while I'm asking about the lexical structure (which, of course, is not directly related to any point in ...
22
votes
3answers
704 views
Extract current viewing parameters from a 3D view?
Is there a way to find out the current viewing parameters of a 3D view? What often happens is that I create a view, for example:
...
22
votes
1answer
545 views
Make a map of squares
I'm trying to use Mathematica to make a map similar to the one here
i.e. a US map where each state is represented by a square of a given size, located as close as possible to its true geographical ...
22
votes
1answer
367 views
On drilling holes with minimal redundancy (and with colors!)
The old Mathematica package Graphics`Shapes` featured the function PerforatePolygons[], which drilled a hole in any ...
21
votes
5answers
856 views
Extruding along a path
I'm trying to render a 3D image of a path by extruding a circular cross-section along the path, creating a "snake-like" path.
Here is an image I found to illustrate:
I can't seem to figure out if ...
21
votes
3answers
2k views
ListPlot with each point a different color and a legend bar
I would like to generate a ListPlot with the color for each point in the plot corresponding to a particular value (not associated with the position in the plot). I'd then like to add a legend ...
21
votes
3answers
404 views
Consistent Plot Styles across multiple MMA files and data sets
I am starting to write a thesis for which I want to use MMA for all my plotting needs, mostly because a lot of the basic analysis has been done there. To ensure that I am applying styles consistently ...
21
votes
2answers
443 views
Aligning plot axes in a graphics object
I need to align the y-axes in the plots below. I think I'm going to have to do some rasterizing and searching for vertical lines, then vary x and ...
20
votes
3answers
761 views
How to extrude a 3D image from a binary 2D image
I'm trying to extrude a nice 3D form from the 2D binary image below using the code posted, but I haven't had any luck in figuring out the error that's keeping ...
20
votes
2answers
493 views
An efficient circular arc primitive for Graphics3D
As many people have noted, the 2D graphics primitive Circle doesn't work in a Graphics3D environment. Several solutions to this ...
20
votes
1answer
340 views
Convert Graphics3D containing BSpline to polygon primitives for export to 3DS?
Graphics3D[] objects created with BSpline functions will not export to 3DS format, which only supports the more basic primitives. Is there any straightforward way ...
20
votes
1answer
361 views
Is there an equivalent of FullGraphics for Graphics3D?
For 2D graphics, there exists the function FullGraphics to turn the stuff Mathematica generates automatically on Graphics (like ...
19
votes
5answers
810 views
Making fractals with Mathematica
I recently saw this post on math.stackexchange and was curious as to how to generate the image in Mathematica. I tried the following naive approach; however, it is extremely slow.
...
19
votes
7answers
1k views
Sizing cells in a GraphicsGrid/GraphicsRow
I would like to add a colour bar to a plot. I tried to use GraphicsRow for this. In a GraphicsRow, each item is given the same ...
19
votes
3answers
582 views
19
votes
2answers
366 views
Is there a way to have Plot draw points on a function where the function is undefined as circles as in textbooks?
A very common feature of graphs of functions used throughout textbooks are simple indications, such as open circles, of the points at which a function is undefined. Is there a way to do this in ...
