3D Mesh Plots in R

How to make interactive 3D mesh plots in R.

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Note: We are retiring documentation for R, MATLAB, Julia, and F# in November 2025. Learn more about this change here.

Basic 3D Mesh Plot

library(plotly)

x <- runif(50, 0, 1)
y <- runif(50, 0, 1)
z <- runif(50, 0, 1)

fig <- plot_ly(x = ~x, y = ~y, z = ~z, type = 'mesh3d')

fig

Tetrahedron Mesh Plot

library(plotly)

fig <- plot_ly(type = 'mesh3d',
  x = c(0, 1, 2, 0),
  y = c(0, 0, 1, 2),
  z = c(0, 2, 0, 1),
  i = c(0, 0, 0, 1),
  j = c(1, 2, 3, 2),
  k = c(2, 3, 1, 3),
  intensity = c(0, 0.33, 0.66, 1),
  color = c(0, 0.33, 0.66, 1),
  colors = colorRamp(c("red", "green", "blue"))
)

fig

Cube Mesh Plot

library(plotly)

fig <- plot_ly(type = 'mesh3d',
  x = c(0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1),
  y = c(0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0),
  z = c(0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1),
  i = c(7, 0, 0, 0, 4, 4, 6, 6, 4, 0, 3, 2),
  j = c(3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 6, 5, 2, 0, 1, 6, 3),
  k = c(0, 7, 2, 3, 6, 7, 1, 1, 5, 5, 7, 6),
  intensity = seq(0, 1, length = 8),
  color = seq(0, 1, length = 8),
  colors = colorRamp(rainbow(8))
)

fig

Reference

See https://plotly.com/r/reference/#mesh3d for more information and chart attribute options!

What About Dash?

Dash for R is an open-source framework for building analytical applications, with no Javascript required, and it is tightly integrated with the Plotly graphing library.

Learn about how to install Dash for R at https://dashr.plot.ly/installation.

Everywhere in this page that you see fig, you can display the same figure in a Dash for R application by passing it to the figure argument of the Graph component from the built-in dashCoreComponents package like this:

library(plotly)

fig <- plot_ly() 
# fig <- fig %>% add_trace( ... )
# fig <- fig %>% layout( ... ) 

library(dash)
library(dashCoreComponents)
library(dashHtmlComponents)

app <- Dash$new()
app$layout(
    htmlDiv(
        list(
            dccGraph(figure=fig) 
        )
     )
)

app$run_server(debug=TRUE, dev_tools_hot_reload=FALSE)