Smooth lofted surface with Matlab isosurface - matlab

I'm trying to generate a 3D structure from a set of 2D cross sections in Matlab- in my case it's a wing that I've optimized the structure for. For the simple example I have two cross sections that are not identical. They can be seen here.
Now I want to do a loft between the surfaces and put caps on the ends, which I do with isosurface and isocaps, respectively. Since I don't want the vague contours, I include a threshold
threshold=0.6;
% loft
fv=isosurface(xq,yq,zq,vq,threshold);
%lids
fvc=isocaps(xq,yq,zq,vq,threshold);
fvc.faces = fvc.faces + size(fv.vertices,1); %re-numbering
%structure with nodes and elements of surface+lids
fall.faces = [fv.faces; fvc.faces];
fall.vertices = [fv.vertices; fvc.vertices];
Now, if I call patch to plot it: pall=patch(fall), it looks like this.
Can anybody tell me why the outer surface is not smooth? And even better, can anyone provide a solution to the issue?
Is it simply that the spacing between the cross sections is too large?
EDIT: Just to clarify. The edge in the middle on the 3d plot is not wanted. I have no idea why it is there. As this is a wing, it's supposed to simply connect the 2d cross sections. There is no data in that region, only at z=2.5m and z=7.5m, as indicated by the cross sections figure.

Related

Linear transformations performed on a coordinate grid in MATLAB

Is it possible to graphically represent linear transformations in MATLAB like the one shown below?
In particular, I'm looking for a way to represent the way a coordinate grid might become squished, stretched, or rotated after a matrix multiplication has been performed. I've tried using meshgrid(x,y) to plot the grid but I've been having trouble getting it to display properly. Ideally, it would be nice to see the way that the transformation acts on a unit square (and, if possible, to see the transformation being performed in a continuous fashion, where you can see the graphs morphing into each other). However, I'm willing to sacrifice these last two requirements.
Here is the code I have used so far:
x = -10:2:10;
y = -10:2:10;
[X,Y] = meshgrid(x,y);
plot(X,Y)
For some reason, only vertical lines have been plotted. (The documentation says it will display a square grid.)
please read the plot doc.
the problem is that what you are doing is trying to plot mash matrixes in a plot not by using mesh or something like that.
you may find this very helpful.

MATLAB: Digitizing a plot with multiple variables and implementing the data

I have 8 plots which I want to implement in my Matlab code. These plots originate from several research papers, hence, I need to digitize them first in order to be able to use them.
An example of a plot is shown below:
This is basically a surface plot with three different variables. I know how to digitize a regular plot with just X and Y coordinates. However, how would one digitize a graph like this? I am quite unsure, hence, the question.
Also, If I would be able to obtain the data from this plot. How would you be able to utilize it in your code? Maybe with some interpolation and extrapolation between the given data points?
Any tips regarding this topic are welcome.
Thanks in advance
Here is what I would suggest:
Read the image in Matlab using imread.
Manually find the pixel position of the left bottom corner and the upper right corner
Using these pixels values and the real numerical value, it is simple to determine the x and y value of every pixel. I suggest you use meshgrid.
Knowing that the curves are in black, then remove every non-black pixel from the image, which leaves you only with the curves and the numbers.
Then use the function bwareaopen to remove the small objects (the numbers). Don't forget to invert the image to remove the black instead of the white.
Finally, by using point #3 and the result of point #6, you can manually extract the data of the graph. It won't be easy, but it will be feasible.
You will need the data for the three variables in order to create a plot in Matlab, which you can get either from the previous research or by estimating and interpolating values from the plot. Once you get the data though, there are two functions that you can use to make surface plots, surface and surf, surf is pretty much the same as surface but includes shading.
For interpolation and extrapolation it sounds like you might want to check out 2D interpolation, interp2. The interp2 function can also do extrapolation as well.
You should read the documentation for these functions and then post back with specific problems if you have any.

Constructing voxels of a 3D cube in MATLAB

I want to construct a 3D cube in MATLAB. I know that the units of any 3D shape are voxels not pixels. Here is what I want to do,
First, I want to construct a cube with some given dimensions x, y, and z.
Second, according to what I understand from different image processing tutorials, this cube must consists of voxels (3D pixels). I want to give every voxel an initial color value, say gray.
Third, I want to access every voxel and change its color, but I want to distinguish the voxels that represent the faces of the cube from those that represent the internal region. I want to axis every voxel by its position x,y, z. At the end, we will end up with a cube that have different colors regions.
I've searched a lot but couldn't find a good way to implement that, but the code given here seems very close in regard to constructing the internal region of the cube,
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/3280-voxel
But it's not clear to me how it performs the process.
Can anyone tell me how to build such a cube in MATLAB?
Thanks.
You want to plot voxels! Good! Lets see how we can do this stuff.
First of all: yeah, the unit of 3D shapes may be voxels, but they don't need to be. You can plot an sphere in 3D without it being "blocky", thus you dont need to describe it in term of voxels, the same way you don't need to describe a sinusoidal wave in term of pixels to be able to plot it on screen. Look at the figure below. (same happens for cubes)
If you are interested in drawing voxels, I generally would recommend you to use vol3D v2 from Matlab's FEX. Why that instead of your own?
Because the best (only?) way of plotting voxels is actually plotting flat square surfaces, 6 for each cube (see answer here for function that does that). This flat surfaces will also create some artifacts for something called z-fighting in computer graphics. vol3D actually only plots 3 surfaces, the ones looking at you, saving half of the computational time, and avoiding ugly plotting artifacts. It is easy to use, you can define colors per voxel and also the alpha (transparency) of each of them, allowing you to see inside.
Example of use:
% numbers are arbitrary
cube=zeros(11,11,11);
cube(3:9,3:9,3:9)=5; % Create a cube inside the region
% Boring: faces of the cube are a different color.
cube(3:9,3:9,3)=2;
cube(3:9,3:9,9)=2;
cube(3:9,3,3:9)=2;
cube(3:9,9,3:9)=2;
cube(3,3:9,3:9)=2;
cube(9,3:9,3:9)=2;
vold3d('Cdata',cube,'alpha',cube/5)
But yeah, that still looks bad. Because if you want to see the inside, voxel plotting is not the best option. Alphas of different faces stack one on top of the other and the only way of solving this is writing advanced computer graphics ray tracing algorithms, and trust me, that's a long and tough road to take.
Very often one has 4D data, thus data that contains 3D location and a single data for each of the locations. One may think that in this case, you really want voxels, as each of them have a 3D +color, 4D data. Indeed! you can do it with voxels, but sometimes its better to describe it in some other ways. As an example, lets see this person who wanted to highlight a region in his/hers 4D space (link). To see a bigger list I suggest you look at my answer in here about 4D visualization techniques.
Lets try wits a different approach than the voxel one. Lets use the previous cube and create isosurfaces whenever the 4D data changes of value.
iso1=isosurface(cube,1);
iso2=isosurface(cube,4);
p1=patch(iso1,'facecolor','r','facealpha',0.3,'linestyle','none');
p2=patch(iso2,'facecolor','g','facealpha',1,'linestyle','none');
% below here is code for it to look "fancy"
isonormals(cube,p1)
view(3);
axis tight
axis equal
axis off
camlight
lighting gouraud
And this one looks way better, in my opinion.
Choose freely and good plotting!

[MATLAB]: How would I mathematically and visually reproduce the 3D surface of the new King's Cross 'Western Concourse'?

Anyone have any starting tips for me? I want to learn from this (ie Don't want to be lazy and have someone answer this for me).
I would like to develop my understanding of mathematical 3D surfaces. My own personal project is to produce a 3D surface/graph of the concourse structure in MATLAB.
I found a link with good pictures of its geometry here. I am not expecting to get it 100% perfectly but I'd like to come close!
At the end of this exercise I would like to have a mathematical definition of the geometry as well as a visual representation of the surface. This can involve cartesian equations, parametric equations, matrices, etc.
Any help would be very much appreciated!
To give some specific advice for MATLAB:
I would load in the 'section' image from the web page you have linked, and display this in a MATLAB figure window. You can then try plotting lines over the top until you find one that fits nicely. So you might do something like:
A = imread('~/Desktop/1314019872-1244-n364-1000x707.jpg');
imshow(A)
hold on
axis on
%# my guess at the function - obviously not a good fit
x = [550:900];
plot(x, 0.0001*x.^2 + 300)
Of course, you might want to move the position of the origin or crop the picture and so on.
As an arguably better alternative to this trial-and-error method, you could trace the outline of the section (e.g by clicking points with something like ginput), and then use one of MATLAB's curve-fitting tools (e.g. fit) to fit a function to the data.
The final 3D shape looks to me (at a casual glance) to be a 3D revolution of the section shape around a central axis. Use of a cylindrical coordinate system could therefore be a good idea.
The final plotting of your 3D shape could be done with a function such as surf or mesh.
I would start by defining a function that defines for each x, y coordinate whether there is a point z, and if so with which altitude.
The shape reminds me a bit of a log or a square root.

grid stack of characteristic curves(lines)

I want to be able to simulate a hyperbolic equation on characteristic curves (lines). I will start with a basic one. u_{t}+2u_{x}=u^{2} with initial data u(x,0)=cos(x). The solution is u(x,t)=cos(x-2t)/(1-t*cos(x-2t)) where the charackteristic curve is x=2*t+x_{0}. So the solution is defined on characteristics (method of characteristics).
x=zeros(10,5);
u=zeros(10,5);
x0=linspace(0,10,10);
t=linspace(0,5,5);
for i=1:length(x0)
for j=1:length(t)
x(i,j)=2*t(j)+x0(i);
if t(j)*cos(x(i,j)-2*t(j))==1
u(i,j)=0;
else
u(i,j)=cos(x(i,j)-2*t(j))/(1-t(j)*cos(x(i,j)-2*t(j)));
end
end
end
mesh(u)
Apperently, the grid of characteristic lines and rectangular grid do not fit eachother. How can I plot the solutions on characteristics?
Firstly, you do not have a rectangular grid due to this line
x(i,j)=2*t(j)+x0(i);
I am not entirely sure what you are asking. I get the impression that you might want to plot the surface of u over the irregular mesh x. If this is indeed the case, you may find the following like enables you to do what you need - although it does look like you will need to do some tweaking of your code.
http://blogs.mathworks.com/videos/2007/11/02/advanced-matlab-surface-plot-of-nonuniform-data/
Alternatively, you could just redesign your code such that x results in a rectangular grid - I cannot say for sure as maybe there is a reason that you only consider these particular points.
If you get no better answers, the above link could enable you to get what you want (assuming I have understood your question correctly).