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I need to fix the resolution of the mesh lines drawn on some surfaces, and currently I don't know how. Here's a MWE to work with (a simple sphere) :

ParametricPlot3D[{Sin[t] Cos[p], Sin[t] Sin[p], Cos[t]},
{t, 0, Pi}, {p, 0, 2 Pi},
Boxed -> False,
Axes -> None, 
ImageSize -> {500, 500},
PlotPoints -> {7, 7},
Mesh -> {3, 7},
SphericalRegion -> True]

If you rotate around this ball, you'll notice that the three circular mesh curves don't have a nice and regular polygonal shape around the ball. The polygons are irregular, and it's ugly.

How can I make the black mesh lines to look more regular, without changing the PlotPoints ? Or what combination of PlotPoints and Mesh (plus some other commands ?) would make the nicest plot, i.e. regular mesh curves everywhere ?

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  • $\begingroup$ One of the mesh lines seems to be "missing" in the result of your code as well: see the bottom left corner of image. $\endgroup$ – MarcoB Mar 9 '16 at 22:12
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, there's a line missing. The only way I know to add its black line is to add BoundaryStyle -> Automatic. I think it's because of some hidden boundary between phi = 0 and phi = 2Pi. $\endgroup$ – Cham Mar 9 '16 at 22:22
  • $\begingroup$ @Cham Do you consider the result with Mesh->All to be a good one? $\endgroup$ – Anton Antonov Mar 10 '16 at 2:13
  • $\begingroup$ Increasing PlotPoints (try 20) works well in combination with MaxRecursion (try 3). $\endgroup$ – Carl Mar 16 at 2:44
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This work around seems to give good results. We specify both (i) mesh lines and (ii) a slightly redundant range for p:

ParametricPlot3D[{Sin[t] Cos[p], Sin[t] Sin[p], Cos[t]}, {t, 0, 
  Pi}, {p, 0, 201/100 Pi}, Boxed -> False, Axes -> None, 
 ImageSize -> {500, 500}, Mesh -> {10, Range[0, 2 \[Pi], 2 \[Pi]/12]},
  SphericalRegion -> True]

enter image description here

Without the mesh lines or the range redundancy we get less regular lines. For example:

enter image description here

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