Using the isosurface() function for 3D coordinate sets

If I only have as input data a finite set (sample) of rectangular coordinates (x,y,z), of a three-dimensional structure with unknown shape, how can I generate the enveloping surface around the points from the isosurface() function?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

The output of isosurface() is the data needed to construct a patch() object, so it contains information about the vertices and the face connections.

It is not clear what kind of representation you want for "the enclosing surface" ?

[Johan Zúñiga]

Thank you very much for your clarification, I have edited my question

[Walter Roberson]

See boundary to get the vertices of the outer hull.

You would not use isosurface() for the case where you have scattered coordinates. isosurface() is for the case where you have a regular grid of coordinates.

[Johan Zúñiga]

Yes, I understand that the 'boundary' function allows me to build a polyhedral surface that surrounds the data set (x,y,z). However, I was wondering if there is a more "sophisticated" method than that. Someone told me that this is possible through the marching cubes algorithm and as far as I understand the 'isosurface' function is based on it. would you have a better suggestion?

The only drawback is that the 'isosurface' function has as input argument a volume data V matrix, but I don't know how to get it if I only know the set of points (x,y,z).