Graph User Manual

Graph ► Tasks ► Z Values
a.k.a: Scalars On a Regular 2D Grid

The Z Values task interprets a list of numbers as x-contiguous z-values on a x-y regular grid. The z-values correspond to height of cells on a 3D perspective plot or as cell amplitude on point fill plots. Some things to note about this task follow:

This task makes surface graphs which means it interpolates z-values on a regular grid with a bi-linear function as a basis over a cell.
The z-values are not actually plotted, that is a misnomer. What is actually plotted is a color gradation related to the z-values. For the flat (2D) point fill representation that gradation corresponds with the color map defined in the skin. For the 3D perspective plot, the color mapping is remapped using a normal-to-observer amplitude to give a sense of reflection and hence 3D quality. Edit Graph can be used to change some of the properties of the color mapping defined in the skin.

The Z Values task is diagrammed in the following figure.

Data Importing and Exporting Formats

The Table Editor atomic cell type is a scalar value and the x and y grid lengths are interpreted as column and row lengths respectively. Column, row and block-select import format is a list of scalars separated by a delimiter.
The Edit Data or Fetch Data (available in Developer Mode only) format is scalars separated by blanks. The x and y grid lengths are entered separately.

Representations

The Z Values tasks implements the representations described in the following table. Remember that Skins can affect the representation and may even alter the representation to not conform to the following descriptions.

Representation	Description
Perspective Surface Graph	Shows a 3D perspective surface graph on a 3D rectilinear coordinate system. Each Z Value is bi-linearly interpolated with adjacent values to form the surface. The color gradation can be altered using Skins.
Perspective Grid Graph	Shows a 3D perspective surface graph on a 3D rectilinear coordinate system. Each Z Value is connected to adjacent values by a line segment to form the grid.
Point Fill Graph > Linear	Shows each Z Value mapped to a color within a rectangle of the regular grid cell on a 2D rectilinear coordinate system. The color map can be altered using Skins.
Point Fill Graph > Semi-Log	Same as Point Fill Graph > Linear except for a semi-log coordinate system (x-linear, y-log).
Point Fill Graph > X-Log	Same as Point Fill Graph > Linear except for a x-log, y-linear coordinate system.
Point Fill Graph > Log-Log	Same as Point Fill Graph > Linear except for a x-log, y-log coordinate system.
Point Fill Graph > Polar	Same as Point Fill Graph > Linear except for a polar coordinate system.
Point Fill Graph > R-Log	Same as Point Fill Graph > Linear except for a polar r-log coordinate system.

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