3D Surface Plots in R

How to make interactive 3D surface plots in R.

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Basic 3D Surface Plot

library(plotly)
# volcano is a numeric matrix that ships with R
fig <- plot_ly(z = ~volcano)
fig <- fig %>% add_surface()

fig
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Surface Plot With Contours

library(plotly)
# volcano is a numeric matrix that ships with R
fig <- plot_ly(z = ~volcano) %>% add_surface(
  contours = list(
    z = list(
      show=TRUE,
      usecolormap=TRUE,
      highlightcolor="#ff0000",
      project=list(z=TRUE)
      )
    )
  )
fig <- fig %>% layout(
    scene = list(
      camera=list(
        eye = list(x=1.87, y=0.88, z=-0.64)
        )
      )
  )

fig
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2D Kernel Density Estimation

kd <- with(MASS::geyser, MASS::kde2d(duration, waiting, n = 50))
fig <- plot_ly(x = kd$x, y = kd$y, z = kd$z) %>% add_surface()

fig
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Configure Surface Contour Levels

This example shows how to slice the surface graph on the desired position for each of x, y and z axis. contours.x.start sets the starting contour level value, end sets the end of it, and size sets the step between each contour level.

x = c(1,2,3,4,5)
y = c(1,2,3,4,5)
z = rbind(
  c(0, 1, 0, 1, 0),
  c(1, 0, 1, 0, 1),
  c(0, 1, 0, 1, 0),
  c(1, 0, 1, 0, 1),
  c(0, 1, 0, 1, 0))


library(plotly)
fig <- plot_ly(
  type = 'surface',
  contours = list(
    x = list(show = TRUE, start = 1.5, end = 2, size = 0.04, color = 'white'),
    z = list(show = TRUE, start = 0.5, end = 0.8, size = 0.05)),
  x = ~x,
  y = ~y,
  z = ~z)
fig <- fig %>% layout(
    scene = list(
      xaxis = list(nticks = 20),
      zaxis = list(nticks = 4),
      camera = list(eye = list(x = 0, y = -1, z = 0.5)),
      aspectratio = list(x = .9, y = .8, z = 0.2)))

fig
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Multiple Surfaces

z <- c(
  c(8.83,8.89,8.81,8.87,8.9,8.87),
  c(8.89,8.94,8.85,8.94,8.96,8.92),
  c(8.84,8.9,8.82,8.92,8.93,8.91),
  c(8.79,8.85,8.79,8.9,8.94,8.92),
  c(8.79,8.88,8.81,8.9,8.95,8.92),
  c(8.8,8.82,8.78,8.91,8.94,8.92),
  c(8.75,8.78,8.77,8.91,8.95,8.92),
  c(8.8,8.8,8.77,8.91,8.95,8.94),
  c(8.74,8.81,8.76,8.93,8.98,8.99),
  c(8.89,8.99,8.92,9.1,9.13,9.11),
  c(8.97,8.97,8.91,9.09,9.11,9.11),
  c(9.04,9.08,9.05,9.25,9.28,9.27),
  c(9,9.01,9,9.2,9.23,9.2),
  c(8.99,8.99,8.98,9.18,9.2,9.19),
  c(8.93,8.97,8.97,9.18,9.2,9.18)
)
dim(z) <- c(15,6)
z2 <- z + 1
z3 <- z - 1

fig <- plot_ly(showscale = FALSE)
fig <- fig %>% add_surface(z = ~z)
fig <- fig %>% add_surface(z = ~z2, opacity = 0.98)
fig <- fig %>% add_surface(z = ~z3, opacity = 0.98)

fig
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What About Dash?

Dash for R is an open-source framework for building analytical applications, with no Javascript required, and it is tightly integrated with the Plotly graphing library.

Learn about how to install Dash for R at https://dashr.plot.ly/installation.

Everywhere in this page that you see fig, you can display the same figure in a Dash for R application by passing it to the figure argument of the Graph component from the built-in dashCoreComponents package like this:

library(plotly)

fig <- plot_ly() 
# fig <- fig %>% add_trace( ... )
# fig <- fig %>% layout( ... ) 

library(dash)
library(dashCoreComponents)
library(dashHtmlComponents)

app <- Dash$new()
app$layout(
    htmlDiv(
        list(
            dccGraph(figure=fig) 
        )
     )
)

app$run_server(debug=TRUE, dev_tools_hot_reload=FALSE)
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