gamesbyangelina · February 26, 2019 11:13
diff --git a/Plotting Points as a Surface in Tikz Using GNUPlot and Octave b/Plotting Points as a Surface in Tikz Using GNUPlot and Octave

 %I forget if you need pgfplots or if I have it for another reason...
 \usepackage{tikz}
 \usepackage{pgfplots}

 \begin{document}

 \begin{figure}
 \begin{tikzpicture}

    % This is for a 3D plot. It assumes your data is in a file called data.txt, local to the tex file.
    % Mine was formatted with one point per line, with each component separated by a single space like so:
    % 1 0.5 3
    % for x y and z components respectively. These are data points that you want to generate a surface out of.
    
    % What the below does is, when you compile the LaTeX, it asks gnuplot/octave to triangulate your data
    % so that tikz can plot that, since it's not able to just magically turn my random data into a surface.
    
    % I installed gnuplot and octave using brew:
    % brew install gnuplot
    % brew install octave
    
    % Important note: I had to add the option '-shell-escape' to my pdflatex call. 
    % In TexMaker you can go to preferences to see your pdflatex command, and add it there.
    
    \begin{axis}
        \addplot3 [patch, patch table={triangles.txt},
        ] shell {echo "data=dlmread('data.txt');
    tri=delaunay(data(:,1), data(:,2));
    dlmwrite('triangles.txt',tri-1,' ');
    disp(data)" | octave --silent};
    \end{axis}
    \end{tikzpicture}
 \end{figure}

 \end{document}

	%I forget if you need pgfplots or if I have it for another reason...
	\usepackage{tikz}
	\usepackage{pgfplots}

	\begin{document}

	\begin{figure}
	\begin{tikzpicture}

	% This is for a 3D plot. It assumes your data is in a file called data.txt, local to the tex file.
	% Mine was formatted with one point per line, with each component separated by a single space like so:
	% 1 0.5 3
	% for x y and z components respectively. These are data points that you want to generate a surface out of.

	% What the below does is, when you compile the LaTeX, it asks gnuplot/octave to triangulate your data
	% so that tikz can plot that, since it's not able to just magically turn my random data into a surface.

	% I installed gnuplot and octave using brew:
	% brew install gnuplot
	% brew install octave

	% Important note: I had to add the option '-shell-escape' to my pdflatex call.
	% In TexMaker you can go to preferences to see your pdflatex command, and add it there.

	\begin{axis}
	\addplot3 [patch, patch table={triangles.txt},
	] shell {echo "data=dlmread('data.txt');
	tri=delaunay(data(:,1), data(:,2));
	dlmwrite('triangles.txt',tri-1,' ');
	disp(data)" \| octave --silent};
	\end{axis}
	\end{tikzpicture}
	\end{figure}

	\end{document}