Plotting a plane with mesh3d

📊 Plotly Python
1

I would like to plot a plane by specifying its four corners. I can successfully show a plane with its normal pointing in the z-direction like this:

data = [{
    'type': 'mesh3d',        
    'x': [0,1,1,0],
    'y': [0,0,1,1],
    'z': [0,0,0,0],
    'color': 'green',
    'opacity': 0.5,
}]

fig = go.Figure(data=data, layout={})
iplot(fig)

However, if I swap the ‘x’ and ‘z’ coordinates, which should result in a plane whose normal points in the y-direction, my plane no longer shows:

data = [{
    'type': 'mesh3d',        
    'x': [0,0,0,0],
    'y': [0,0,1,1],
    'z': [0,1,1,0],    
    'color': 'green',
    'opacity': 0.5,
}]

Any ideas? Thanks.

2

@MrWallace Your plane is generated as a Delaunay triangulation of the four points, and its triangles are filled with the green color.
When the points that define the Delaunay triangulation are coplanar, you should set the delaunayaxis
key. Its default value is ‘z’ (that’s why your first example works). In the second case the right data description is:

data = [{
    'type': 'mesh3d',        
    'x': [0,0,0,0],
    'y': [0,0,1,1],
    'z': [0,1,1,0], 
    'delaunayaxis':'x',
    'color': 'green',
    'opacity': 0.5,
}]

The delaunayaxis sets the working direction for the Delaunay triangulation algorithm.

When delaunayaxis=‘z’, the algorithm starts constructing the triangulation from a point with the highest z-coordinate,
and chooses vertically the nearby points, to define the Delaunay triangles. When delaunayaxis=‘x’ or ‘y’ the algorithm works in the x-axis, respectively y-axis direction.

1 Like
3

Brilliant, thank you!