How do I plot multiple XY vectors with corresponding Z values on the same plot?

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Hello,
I have recently just started my matlab experience, and have run into a situation that I am having a hard time solving. I have an xls file with with 25 columns (the first on being the X values, and the corresponding 24 being the Y values). I would like to plot the individual 24 XY vectors on the same plot but add a Z element to make it "3D". I can easily plot them all on one graph in 2D, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to add the Z axis in. Here is the code that I am using so far:
%
% clear all
clear all
%%Location of data to analyze
fname='All B columns ROI 94.xls'
%%open data
data=xlsread(fname);
s=size(data);
col=2:s(2)
colA=data(:,1);
X=colA;
Y=data(:,col);
Z=(length(col)); %%I'm assuming this is the problem as it isn't a matrix
figure;
hold on;
plot3(X,Y,Z);
I'm uncertain as to whether I need to recreate the XYZ data into a 3D matrix and then plot it, or if there is a much simpler way of plotting this. I've attached a figure from excel that I was able to make that demonstrates what I would like the plot to look like (it only contains the first three columns of data as an example).
I've done multiple searches and haven't been able to find a solution, so I thought that I'd ask. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks, Russ

Accepted Answer

José-Luis
José-Luis on 16 Jun 2014
Edited: José-Luis on 16 Jun 2014
IMO, that's not a very good way of presenting data. It might look pretty, but most of the results are hidden. If you really want to do it like that in Matlab, then you could create patch objects and use some transparency.
You could do as follows:
your_data = rand(100,3);
numDat = size(your_data,1);
for y = 1:3;
xx = [1:numDat numDat 1 1]';
yy = y * ones(numDat + 3);
zz = [your_data(:,y); 0; 0; your_data(1,y)];
patch(xx,yy,zz,rand(1,3),'FaceAlpha',0.5,'EdgeColor','none');
end
view(160,50)
But then again, I think simple lines would work much better.
doc plot3
  4 Comments
José-Luis
José-Luis on 16 Jun 2014
No worries. When in doubt the documentation is a good place to start. It is generally (but not always) well-written.

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More Answers (1)

Joseph Cheng
Joseph Cheng on 16 Jun 2014
Here is what you can do to get something along those lines. I'm not sure if there is a function to plot that however what you can do is draw polygons based on the data. See my example:
Y = randi(50,4,100);
X = 1:100;
x = [X X(end:-1:1)];
y = [Y zeros(size(Y))];
z = ones(size(x));
fill3(x,z,y(1,:),'r',x,2*z,y(2,:),'g',x,4*z,y(3,:),'b');axis equal; legend

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