I'm using the online version in the Wolfram Cloud. Whenever I attempt the following computation:
ContourPlot3D[Sin[x] + Sin[y] + Sin[z], {x, 0, 4}, {y, -2, 2}, {z, -2, 2}]
ContourPlot3D[
Sin[x] + Sin[y] + Sin[z],
{x, 0, 4}, {y, -2, 2}, {z, -2, 2}
]
either the kernel will crash (barely noticeable except that the In/Out markers on the left change to gray dots as if I were returning from a sufficiently long period of inactivity) or the whole page on which I'm working will go to an error screen stating that there is not enough memory to display the page.
In the latter case, attempting to re-enter the notebook in question will cause the memory usage by the browser to soar to nearly 3 gigabytes once it tries to load the plot of the formula above, followed by an "Aw, snap!" screen (I'm using Chrome). One of my 3D plotting notebooks is bricked because of this.
Normally, if a computation requires more memory than the user's Cloud plan will allow, an error message will appear stating "This computation has exceeded the memory limit for your plan". This did not occur here.
Some plots I have previously generated with polynomial functions appeared comparably intensive to render to what I would expect for a sine function, but none caused problems like this. Is the plot just too heavy to render, or is there another issue? Can it be optimized not to require as much memory?