How to plot a multidimensional array in a 3D plot?

October 21, 2023

I have a multidimensional array (P x N x M) and I want to plot each N x M array in a 3D plot in such a way the P images are stacked along the z-axis.

Do you know hw to do this in Python?

Thanks in advance

>Solution :

If you want N x M arrays as "heatmaps" stacked above each other along the z-axis this is one way to do it:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Generate some dummy arrays
P, N, M = 5, 10, 10
data = np.random.rand(P, N, M)

# Create a 3D figure
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')

# Create meshgrid for x, y values
x, y = np.meshgrid(np.arange(M), np.arange(N))

# Plot each N x M array as a heatmap at different heights along the z-axis
for p in range(P):
    heatmap = data[p]
    ax.plot_surface(x, y, np.full_like(heatmap, p), facecolors=plt.cm.viridis(heatmap), rstride=1, cstride=1, antialiased=True, shade=False)

ax.set_xlabel('X')
ax.set_ylabel('Y')
ax.set_zlabel('P')
ax.set_title('Stacked Heatmaps')
plt.show()

Result: