Plot a surface with X Y Z data

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I am importing three different data sets from excel sheet and I want to plot the latitude, longitude on x and y axis and energy on z axis.
Whenever I import the three data-sets and use the surface function, matlab displays an error that Z must be a matrix not a scalar or vector. I am unable to rectify this as I feel the imported data is already in the form of a matrix.
Please suggest the edit to rectify the error.
PROGRAM:
close all
clear all
clc
[~,long_energy] = xlsread('Energy','B:B');
[~,lat_energy] = xlsread('Energy','A:A');
EE = xlsread('Energy', 'J:J');
lat = str2double(lat_energy);
long = str2double(long_energy);
surf(lat,long, EE);
  3 Comments
Ujjwal
Ujjwal on 15 Jul 2014
Yes. First column is Latitude, second is Longitude and the last is Energy.

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Accepted Answer

Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 11 Oct 2017
num = xlsread('Energy.xlsx');
long_energy = num(:,2);
lat_energy = num(:,1);
EE = num(:,end);
F = scatteredInterpolant(long_energy, lat_energy, EE);
min_long = min(long_energy);
min_lat = min(lat_energy);
max_long = max(long_energy);
max_lat = max(lat_energy);
proj_long = linspace(min_long, max_long, 100);
proj_lat = linspace(min_lat, max_lat, 100);
[PROJ_LONG, PROJ_LAT] = ndgrid(proj_long, proj_lat);
PROJ_EE = F(PROJ_LONG, PROJ_LAT);
surf(PROJ_LONG, PROJ_LAT, PROJ_EE, 'edgecolor', 'none');
  1 Comment
Jason Burke
Jason Burke on 4 May 2021
I tried this approah with my own data, but when using surf, I still get the error "Z must be a matrix, not a scaler or vector".

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More Answers (7)

Shivam Anand
Shivam Anand on 11 May 2022
x=[32 20 67 1 98 34 57 65 24 82 47 55 8 51 13 14 18 30 37 39 10 33 21 26 38 81 83 60 95 22 17 5 72 46 99 52 12 25 96 29 70 85 43 69 19 78 97 31 89 53 2 91 48 71 61 15 36 84 94 50 11 80 6 7 49 74 9 88 40 79 27 68 73 64 63 59 86 23 35 58 45 28 100 42 93 87 16 90 41 66 54 92 77 4 62 76 75 56 3 44];
y=[96 75 24 9 83 49 27 77 3 23 17 31 40 13 7 52 51 21 98 47 64 79 78 91 44 16 15 100 84 99 63 68 70 30 54 76 97 73 33 5 88 8 71 66 62 25 60 42 72 45 18 11 28 59 89 65 10 55 69 81 12 26 20 95 87 41 74 50 93 22 43 90 14 34 82 35 56 38 80 32 1 57 6 36 37 61 29 58 2 48 4 46 67 53 92 86 94 19 39 85];
z=[55 31 11 45 83 36 86 49 15 57 42 46 8 94 88 47 54 81 98 41 32 35 56 85 9 89 37 60 23 62 67 100 78 76 73 80 10 20 68 34 77 93 1 63 53 12 22 99 91 40 84 24 33 3 43 19 92 97 6 82 64 25 26 79 95 4 44 58 5 21 70 29 65 87 96 90 51 14 18 2 72 28 71 39 52 7 27 59 50 61 48 30 66 69 17 13 74 16 75 38];
xlin = linspace(min(x), max(x), 100);
ylin = linspace(min(y), max(y), 100);
[X,Y] = meshgrid(xlin, ylin);
% Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'natural');
% Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'cubic');
Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'v4');
mesh(X,Y,Z)
axis tight; hold on
plot3(x,y,z,'.','MarkerSize',15)

Toby
Toby on 10 Oct 2017
It sounds like you're looking for
scatter3(x,y,z)
https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/scatter3.html
  2 Comments
Gennadij Nikitin
Gennadij Nikitin on 18 Sep 2019
Yes! scatter3(x,y,z) is indeed what i was looking for, thank you!
Yohana
Yohana on 2 Jan 2023
Attempt with Mat lab to produce the results shown on slides 30, 32, 37, 38, 43, 44, 48, 52, 56, 57, 59, 60, 70, 71, 72.

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Azzi Abdelmalek
Azzi Abdelmalek on 15 Jul 2014
When x, y and z are vector, you can't use surf(x,y,z). x,y and z should be matrices of the same size look at surf function. What you can do with your vectors is
plot3(lat,long, EE)
  2 Comments
Ujjwal
Ujjwal on 15 Jul 2014
Using the plot function, I get lines which is not really a kind of result I am looking for. I want to portray the result using a surface.
Ozan Akyildiz
Ozan Akyildiz on 15 Oct 2021
All you need to do for that is specifying '.' as your marker:
plot3(lat,long, EE,'.')
The rest is also just customizing your plot.

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Joseph Cheng
Joseph Cheng on 15 Jul 2014
Edited: Joseph Cheng on 15 Jul 2014
you can try to use the interp2() function. I haven't checked your excel file but it may accomplish what you're looking for. by using your data and attempting to put it in a meshgrid format.

Kenzai
Kenzai on 4 Oct 2017
Is this question ever been answered ? Because I'm stuck on a likewise problem. Thanks ahead!
  1 Comment
Yohana
Yohana on 2 Jan 2023
Attempt with Mat lab to produce the results shown on slides 30, 32, 37, 38, 43, 44, 48, 52, 56, 57, 59, 60, 70, 71, 72.
Help me please

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Shubham Agrawal
Shubham Agrawal on 8 Oct 2017
bump, same question - what's the best way to plot a set of X, Y and Z data?

Sheriza
Sheriza on 1 Sep 2022
x = [0 5 10 15 20 26 27 28 30 30 30 30 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 25 25 20 15 12 10 5 5 10 14 15 20];
y=[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 10 15 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 15 10 5 5 5 5 5 5 10 15 15 15 15 15 15 10 10 10 10 10];
Z=[13.08 13.74 11.43 22.34 25.74 20.00 12.89 26.41 19.36 19.75 17.08 22.52 21.70 18.29 25.68 24.90 22.78 12.47 17.80 13.13 20.23 14.53 10.78 17.95 22.40 15.15 10.18 14.75 19.15 14.34 12.77 23.95 24.35 4.92 18.11 14.08 24.95 22.48 18.63];
xlin = linspace(min(x), max(x), 100);
ylin = linspace(min(y), max(y), 100);
[X,Y] = meshgrid(xlin, ylin);
% Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'natural');
% Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'cubic');
Z = griddata(x,y,z,X,Y,'v4');
mesh(X,Y,Z)
axis tight; hold on
plot3(x,y,z,'.','MarkerSize',15)

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