Pyqtgraph & Changing color base on height for surfaceplot

Question

I am looking for a way to make my surface plot item to change color base on height. Below is my current method:

def __init__(self, s):

    self.traces = dict()
    self.app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    self.w = gl.GLViewWidget()
    self.w.opts['distance'] = 2000
    self.w.setWindowTitle('pyqtgraph example: GLLinePlotItem')
    self.w.setGeometry(0, 0, 600, 600)
    self.w.show()
    self.socket = s

    self.timer = QtCore.QTimer()
    self.timer.setInterval(1) # in milliseconds
    self.timer.start()
    self.timer.timeout.connect(self.onNewData)

    # create the background grids
    #gx is the y grid
    #gz is the x gid
    gx = gl.GLGridItem()
    gx.rotate(90, 0, 1, 0)
    gx.translate(0, 0, 0)
    self.w.addItem(gx)
    gz = gl.GLGridItem()
    gz.translate(200, 0, -500)
    self.w.addItem(gz)
    gx.scale(100, 10, 100)
    gz.scale(20, 10, 100)


    self.y = np.linspace(0, 100, 10)
    self.x = np.linspace(60,400, 708)
    temp_z = np.zeros((10,708))
    self.surf = gl.GLSurfacePlotItem(x=self.y, y=self.x, z=temp_z, shader='heightColor',
                                     computeNormals=False, smooth=False)
    self.surf.scale(3,1,1)
    self.surf.shader()['colorMap'] = np.array([0.7, 2, 0.5, 0.2, 0.7, 0.7, 0.2, 0, 2])
    self.w.addItem(self.surf)

But the method is not working out quiet well. As Z values get very high, the surface become completely white. Btw, I have no idea of what I am doing with colormap, i just took it off the example.

Answer 1

I suggest you to use the colors option of GLSurfacePlotItem. The idea is to compute colors that are associated with the z values of the surface (the heigths) an make them normalize (between 0 and 1). With this, you can compute a color for each point of the surface with cmap of matlotlib for instance.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import print_function, absolute_import
from pyqtgraph.Qt import QtCore, QtGui
import pyqtgraph as pg
import pyqtgraph.opengl as gl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import os
from PyQt4.QtGui import QFileDialog
import sys

if not( 'app' in locals()):
    app = QtGui.QApplication([])

traces = dict()
# app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
w = gl.GLViewWidget()
w.opts['distance'] = 2000
w.setWindowTitle('pyqtgraph example: GLLinePlotItem')
w.setGeometry(0, 0, 600, 600)
w.show()
# socket = s

# timer = QtCore.QTimer()
# timer.setInterval(1) # in milliseconds
# timer.start()
# timer.timeout.connect(onNewData)

# create the background grids
#gx is the y grid
#gz is the x gid
gx = gl.GLGridItem()
gx.rotate(90, 0, 1, 0)
gx.translate(0, 0, 0)
w.addItem(gx)
gz = gl.GLGridItem()
gz.translate(200, 0, -500)
w.addItem(gz)
gx.scale(100, 10, 100)
gz.scale(20, 10, 100)


y = np.linspace(0, 100, 10)
print(y)
x = np.linspace(0,100, 10)
print(x)
temp_z = np.random.rand(len(x),len(y))*100.

cmap = plt.get_cmap('jet')

minZ=np.min(temp_z)
maxZ=np.max(temp_z)
rgba_img = cmap((temp_z-minZ)/(maxZ -minZ))


surf = gl.GLSurfacePlotItem(x=y, y=x, z=temp_z, colors = rgba_img )

surf.scale(3,1,1)
# surf.shader()['colorMap'] = np.array(list(np.linspace(-100, 100, 1000)))
w.addItem(surf)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys

    if (sys.flags.interactive != 1) or not hasattr(QtCore, 'PYQT_VERSION'):
        QtGui.QApplication.instance().exec_()

which give :