ribbon — Create 3-D ribbon plots from columns of data.

ribbon(Y) renders each column of Y as a 3-D surface strip. Optional X coordinates control the row positions, and optional width controls the strip width around each column center. The return value is a surface handle for vector input or a row vector of surface handles for matrix input.

Syntax

h = ribbon(Y)
h = ribbon(Y, width)
h = ribbon(X, Y)
h = ribbon(X, Y, width)
h = ribbon(___, Name, Value, ...)
h = ribbon(ax, ___)

Inputs

Returns

Errors

How ribbon works

• ribbon(Y) uses implicit x coordinates 1:size(Y,1) and creates one surface ribbon per column of Y.
• ribbon(Y,width) uses the supplied positive finite ribbon width around each column center.
• ribbon(X,Y) and ribbon(X,Y,width) use X as the x coordinates for each row of Y; numel(X) must match the number of rows in Y.
• Vector Y input, including row-vector input, creates a single ribbon surface.
• NaN height values are preserved in the surface ZData, allowing callers to represent missing or interrupted ribbon geometry.
• The axes-target form ribbon(ax,...) renders into the supplied axes handle.
• Surface style name/value pairs such as FaceAlpha, FaceColor, EdgeColor, Shading, Colormap, DisplayName, Lighting, and Visible are accepted through the same surface style parser used by surf.
• Each returned object has type surface; get exposes the actual coordinate-grid XData, YData, and ZData for each ribbon strip.
• Surface handles support setting XData, YData, ZData, FaceAlpha, FaceColor, EdgeColor, Shading, Colormap, DisplayName, Lighting, FlattenZ, and Visible; unsupported surface property names raise an error instead of silently no-oping.
• DisplayName defaults to the empty string unless supplied by a name/value pair or later set call.

Examples

Create a ribbon plot from matrix columns

Y = [1 4; 2 5; 3 6];
h = ribbon(Y);

Expected output:

% h is a vector of surface handles

Use explicit x coordinates and width

x = [10 20 30];
Y = [2; 3; 4];
h = ribbon(x, Y, 0.5);
get(h, 'XData')

Expected output:

ans =
    10    10
    20    20
    30    30

Style ribbon surfaces

Y = [1 3 2; 2 4 3; 3 5 4];
h = ribbon(Y, 0.4, 'FaceAlpha', 0.7, 'DisplayName', 'bands');
get(h(1), 'FaceAlpha')

Expected output:

ans =
    0.7000

Using ribbon with coding agents

Open a RunMat example with live inputs, then ask the agent to explain how ribbon changes the result.

FAQ

Related Plotting functions

Open-source implementation

Unlike proprietary runtimes, every RunMat function is open-source. Read exactly how ribbon is executed, line by line, in Rust.

• View the source for ribbon in Rust on GitHub
• Learn how the RunMat runtime works
• Found a bug? Open an issue with a minimal reproduction.

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