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I have a bunch of 3D data (x, y coordinates and values) which is generated in Matlab and I need to render them in a 2D color map with certain axis ranges. Here are the Matlab code and the generated figure.

rho = linspace(0, 80, 100);
phi = linspace(0, 2*pi, 100);
[PHI,RHO] = meshgrid(phi, rho);
dat = rand(size(PHI)); % data was generated in cylindrical coordinate
[x, y] = pol2cart(PHI, RHO);
surf(x, y, data,'edgecolor','none'); shading interp;
view(0, 90);
axis equal; axis off;
xlim([-50, 50]); ylim([-50, 50])
save('data.mat', 'x', 'y', 'dat')

render 3d data into a 2d colormap

In Mathematica, I imported these data by evaluating

{x, y, dat} = Import["data.mat", "MAT"]

but I have no idea how to render them as shown above. I tried 

ListPlot3D[{x, y, dat}]

It gave a 3D pattern but was extremely slow because I have a lot of data. Could anyone give me a hint to tackle this problem?

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    $\begingroup$ Could you please post the data for those of us who don't have matlab? $\endgroup$
    – s0rce
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 18:40
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    $\begingroup$ I guess the sample code could be: data = Flatten[ Table[{r Cos[i], r Sin[i], RandomReal[{0, Pi}]}, {i, 0, 2 Pi, 2 Pi/100.}, {r, 0, 80, 80/100.}], 1];ListDensityPlot[data, PlotRange -> {{-50, 50}, {-50, 50}}, ColorFunction -> Hue] $\endgroup$
    – halmir
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 18:52

1 Answer 1

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MATLAB's surf plots a parametric surface with the point $(x_i,y_j)$ colored according to the value in $\mathrm{dat}_{i,j}$. This is easily achieved with ListDensityPlot as follows:

ListDensityPlot[Thread[Flatten /@ {x, y, dat}], PlotRange -> {{-50, 50}, {-50, 50}}]

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks rm -rf, it works but take a lot of time if we upsample the data as commented by @halmir, say, from 100 to 500. Any idea to accelerate it? $\endgroup$
    – Tony Dong
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 19:15
  • $\begingroup$ It's probably because ListDensityPlot interpolates and tries to resample/refine it to a regular grid behind the scenes. I can't test this right now, but I'll take a look later in the day. $\endgroup$
    – rm -rf ♦
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 20:16

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