4D plots in Matlab?

Hi, I was wondering whether one could plot a 4D line graph -- I am trying to track multiple cells in 3D (x, y, z position) over time, with all cells starting at origin (eg. t0(0,0,0), t1(0, 2, 2.5), t2(-1, 3, 4) etc..). This can easily be done in (x,y ,t) in Prism, but I would really like to plot the movement in 3 dimensions over time. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

See http://www.mathworks.co.uk/matlabcentral/answers/105861-plot-function-of-3-variables for hints

Answer 2

[Gautam]

Hello Ali,

If you want to represent the change in 3D position of a graphic over time, you can represent this using with an animation. Here's an example demonstrating this:

numTimePoints = 100;
t = linspace(0, 10, numTimePoints); % Time vector
x = sin(t);
y = cos(t); 
z = t;      

figure;
hold on;
grid on;
xlabel('X');
ylabel('Y');
zlabel('Z');
view(3);
line = plot3(x(1), y(1), z(1), 'b-', 'LineWidth', 2);
head = plot3(x(1), y(1), z(1), 'ro', 'MarkerSize', 8, 'MarkerFaceColor', 'r');

% Plot the trajectory as an animation
for i = 1:numTimePoints

    line.XData = x(1:i);
    line.YData = y(1:i);
    line.ZData = z(1:i);

    head.XData = x(i);
    head.YData = y(i);
    head.ZData = z(i);
    pause(0.05);
end

This produces the following output: