3D Volume Plots in Python

How to make 3D Volume Plots in Python with Plotly.

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A volume plot with go.Volume shows several partially transparent isosurfaces for volume rendering. The API of go.Volume is close to the one of go.Isosurface. However, whereas isosurface plots show all surfaces with the same opacity, tweaking the opacityscale parameter of go.Volume results in a depth effect and better volume rendering.

Simple volume plot with go.Volume¶

In the three examples below, note that the default colormap is different whether isomin and isomax have the same sign or not.

In [1]:
import plotly.graph_objects as go
import numpy as np
X, Y, Z = np.mgrid[-8:8:40j, -8:8:40j, -8:8:40j]
values = np.sin(X*Y*Z) / (X*Y*Z)

fig = go.Figure(data=go.Volume(
x=X.flatten(),
y=Y.flatten(),
z=Z.flatten(),
value=values.flatten(),
isomin=0.1,
isomax=0.8,
opacity=0.1, # needs to be small to see through all surfaces
surface_count=17, # needs to be a large number for good volume rendering
))
fig.show()