| .. _toolkit_mplot3d-faq: |
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| *********** |
| mplot3d FAQ |
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| How is mplot3d different from Mayavi? |
| ===================================== |
| `Mayavi <https://docs.enthought.com/mayavi/mayavi/>`_ |
| is a very powerful and featureful 3D graphing library. For advanced |
| 3D scenes and excellent rendering capabilities, it is highly recommended to |
| use Mayavi. |
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| mplot3d was intended to allow users to create simple 3D graphs with the same |
| "look-and-feel" as matplotlib's 2D plots. Furthermore, users can use the same |
| toolkit that they are already familiar with to generate both their 2D and 3D |
| plots. |
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| My 3D plot doesn't look right at certain viewing angles |
| ======================================================= |
| This is probably the most commonly reported issue with mplot3d. The problem |
| is that -- from some viewing angles -- a 3D object would appear in front |
| of another object, even though it is physically behind it. This can result in |
| plots that do not look "physically correct." |
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| Unfortunately, while some work is being done to reduce the occurrence of this |
| artifact, it is currently an intractable problem, and cannot be fully solved |
| until matplotlib supports 3D graphics rendering at its core. |
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| The problem occurs due to the reduction of 3D data down to 2D + z-order |
| scalar. A single value represents the 3rd dimension for all parts of 3D |
| objects in a collection. Therefore, when the bounding boxes of two collections |
| intersect, it becomes possible for this artifact to occur. Furthermore, the |
| intersection of two 3D objects (such as polygons or patches) cannot be |
| rendered properly in matplotlib's 2D rendering engine. |
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| This problem will likely not be solved until OpenGL support is added to all of |
| the backends (patches are greatly welcomed). Until then, if you need complex |
| 3D scenes, we recommend using |
| `MayaVi <https://docs.enthought.com/mayavi/mayavi/>`_. |
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| I don't like how the 3D plot is laid out, how do I change that? |
| =============================================================== |
| Historically, mplot3d has suffered from a hard-coding of parameters used |
| to control visuals such as label spacing, tick length, and grid line width. |
| Work is being done to eliminate this issue. For matplotlib v1.1.0, there is |
| a semi-official manner to modify these parameters. See the note in the |
| :mod:`.mplot3d.axis3d` section of the mplot3d API documentation for |
| more information. |
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