How to make a smooth rotation of a 3D plot in MATLAB? -

if try rotate camera around current figure plot3 using

while true; camorbit(0.9,-0.1); drawnow; end 

then rotation periodically hangs while (example) on 8-core macpro.

can make smooth?

edit1:

while there no solution original question yet, i've managed make better movie getframe function. doesn't allow recording free-hand rotation, though, , quite buggy in matlab2010b mac.

%# fix wrong figure position in matlab2010b mac - depends on layout correctedposition = get(gcf,'position') + [21 -125 0 0];  fps = 60; sec = 10;  vidobj = videowriter('newfile.avi'); vidobj.quality = 100; vidobj.framerate = fps;  open(vidobj); i=1:fps*sec   camorbit(0.9,-0.1);   writevideo(vidobj,getframe(gcf, correctedposition)); end close(vidobj); 

edit2:

i created similar thread @ matlab central.

edit3:

you can try downloading 1 of figures.

i it's large number of points drawing that's causing slowdown. 1 option downsample.. use lower-level functions draw (check this related post comparison of plot3/scatter3/line performance).

consider animation below optimized speed:

[x y z] = sphere(64); x = x(:); y = y(:); z = z(:);  %# set-up figure hfig = figure('backingstore','off', 'renderer','zbuffer');  %# use lower-level function line line(0.50*[x,x], 0.50*[y,y], 0.50*[z,z], 'linestyle','none', 'marker','.', 'markersize',1, 'color','r') line(0.75*[x,x], 0.75*[y,y], 0.75*[z,z], 'linestyle','none', 'marker','.', 'markersize',1, 'color','g') line(1.00*[x,x], 1.00*[y,y], 1.00*[z,z], 'linestyle','none', 'marker','.', 'markersize',1, 'color','b') view(3)  %# freeze aspect ratio override stretch-to-fill behaviour axis vis3d  %# fix axes limits manually %#set(gca, 'xlim',[-1 1], 'ylim',[-1 1], 'zlim',[-1 1]) axis manual  %# maybe remove tick labels %set(gca, 'xticklabel',[], 'yticklabel',[], 'zticklabel',[])  %# animate (until figure closed) while ishandle(hfig); camorbit(0.9,-0.1); drawnow; end 

note how using z-buffer renderer, , turned off backingstore property.

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edit:

if understood correctly, trying record screencast (using 3rd-party app), while manually rotate figure, in case these manual rotations "jumpy". on other animating figure camorbit/view in while-loop running smooth...

i propose alternative solution: start rotating figure using mouse , write these view configurations @ each step (azimuth,elevation). can replay them using view function while recording video, like:

v = [...];   %# matrix each row specify az/el of view i=1:size(v,1)     view( v(i,:) )     drawnow end 

the downside have press/rotate/release using mouse in small steps (the rotate3d object not expose mouse-motion event)

i wrote simple function in process. loads saved figure, enable 3d-rotation, , keeps track of intermediate position @ each step. once finished, press "done" button return list of views...

function v = rotationdemo(figfilename)     views = [];                     %# list of views (az,el)      hfig = hgload(figfilename);     %# load saved figure      views(1,:) = get(gca,'view');   %# store initial view      %# add button, used terminate process     hbutton = uicontrol('style','pushbutton', 'position',[400 1 80 20], ...                         'string','done?', 'callback',@buttoncallback);     set(hfig, 'toolbar','figure')   %# restore toolbar      %# start 3d rotation, , handle post-callback record intermediate views     h = rotate3d(hfig);             %# rotation object     set(h, 'actionpostcallback',@rotatecallback)     set(h, 'enable','on')           %# enable rotation      msgbox('rotate view step-by-step', 'rotate3d', 'warn', 'modal')      uiwait(hfig)                    %# wait user click button     delete(hbutton)                 %# delete button on finish     set(h, 'enable','off')          %# disable rotation     v = round(views);               %# return list of views      %# callback functions     function rotatecallback(o,e)         views(end+1,:) = get(e.axes,'view');  %# add current view list     end     function buttoncallback(o,e)         uiresume(gcbf)                        %# uiresume(hfig)     end end 

you can call above function, replay animation:

v = rotationdemo('smooth_rotation.fig'); i=1:size(v,1)     view(v(i,:))     drawnow end 

we can smooth transitions simple interpolation:

v = rotationdemo('smooth_rotation.fig'); n = size(v,1); nn = linspace(1,n,100)';     %'# use 100 steps vv = round( [interp1(v(:,1),nn) interp1(v(:,2),nn)] ); i=1:size(vv,1)     view(vv(i,:))     drawnow                  %# or pause(..) slow down end 

as side note, should mention rotate3d , camorbit have different effects. rotate3d changes view property of current axis, while camorbit controls camera properties cameratarget/cameraposition/cameraupvector of current axis.