How do I add a 2D Plot along with a surface or mesh plot in MATLAB?

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I would like to have a 2D plot along with a 3D surface or mesh plot - shown by the blue line I drew on the surface plot below. How do I get it?

Accepted Answer

Kye Taylor
Kye Taylor on 1 May 2013
Does this get you started?
% create figure
figure
% Generate data to make a surface
x = -1:0.1:1;
y = -1:0.1:1;
[X,Y] = meshgrid(x,y);
Z = X.^2 + Y.^2 - 1;
% visualize 3D surface
surf(X,Y,Z)
% Generate data to make line plot in plane z = minimumZValue
minimumZValue = min(Z(:));
t0 = linspace(0,2*pi);
x0 = .8*cos(t0);
y0 = .8*sin(t0);
% visualize line plot
line(x0,y0,minimumZValue*ones(size(t0)),'linewidth',2)
% Generate data to make line plot in plane x = minimumXValue
minimumXValue = min(X(:));
y00 = linspace(min(Y(:)),max(Y(:)));
% will be shifted to make z = minimumZValue the new z = 0
z00 = exp(-5*y00.^2);
z00 = z00 + minimumZValue; % comment this out to see effect
line(minimumXValue(ones(size(y00))),y00,z00,'linewidth',2,'color','r')
xlabel('x')
ylabel('y')
grid on
view(3)
  2 Comments
Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 1 May 2013
Notice that Kye has used a 3-dimensional line rather than a 2-dimensional one. The equivalent higher-level routine would be plot3().
If you attempt to put a 2 dimensional plot in with a 3 dimensional plot, then although you might be able to get it to work with a specific view, it would stop working if you rotated the view at all.
Bharath Lohray
Bharath Lohray on 1 May 2013
Hi, It works on being rotated as well - unless the answer got edited after your comment.
I got it to work, but My data had two different ranges. This shrinks my plot to a ceiling surface. Is there a way to plot with 2 Y axis? The continuing http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/74232-how-do-i-add-2-y-axis-to-my-matlab-plot

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