Skip to main content

plotting - Continuously varying tube radius


I'm currently trying to draw tubular neighborhoods of torus knots, which Mathematica's Tube function allows me to do quite easily. My question regards the appearance of the neighborhood: is there any way to use an explicit function to continuously specify the radius of the tube? I've managed to find a few examples with nonconstant radii, but nothing where it varies continuously.


I did manage to find enough examples to figure out how draw these tubular neighborhoods so that they are colored according to an explicit function. If possible, I would like the radius to correspond to the color at every point on the curve. Here's what I've got so far:


Clear[γ, t, w, wColor, wmin, wmax]

(*Define a torus knot γ and a weight function w*)
γ[t_] = {(2 + Cos[3 t]) Cos[2 t], (2 + Cos[3 t]) Sin[2 t], Sin[3 t]};

w[t_] = 2 + Cos[t];

(*All this nonsense makes red the heaviest and blue the lightest*)
wmin = First[FindMinimum[{w[t], 0 <= t <= 2 π}, {t, .1}]];
wmax = First[FindMaximum[{w[t], 0 <= t <= 2 π}, {t, .1}]];
wColor[t_] = (7/10)*(1 - ((w[t] - wmin)/(wmax - wmin)));

ParametricPlot3D[γ[t], {t, 0, 2 π + .01},
ColorFunction -> Function[{x, y, z, t}, Hue[wColor[t]]],
ColorFunctionScaling -> False,

PlotStyle -> Directive[Opacity[.7], CapForm[None]],
PlotRange -> All, Boxed -> False,
MaxRecursion -> 0,
PlotPoints -> 100,
Axes -> None,
Method -> {"TubePoints" -> 30}] /.
Line[pts_, rest___] -> Tube[pts, 0.2, rest]

In short, I would like to continuously vary the radius of this tube:


colored tube




Answer



You can take a continuous function and evaluate it at the same points that are also used by ParametricPlot3D to create the curve. Here is a way to do it:


rr = Reap[
ParametricPlot3D[γ[t], {t, 0, 2 Pi + .01},
ColorFunction ->
Function[{x, y, z, t}, Hue[wColor[Sow[t, "tValues"]]]],
ColorFunctionScaling -> False,
PlotStyle -> Directive[Opacity[.7], CapForm[None]],
PlotRange -> All, Boxed -> False, MaxRecursion -> 0,
PlotPoints -> 100, Axes -> None, Method -> {"TubePoints" -> 30}],

"tValues"];
rr[[1]] /.
Line[pts_, rest___] :> Tube[pts, 0.2 + .1 Sin[rr[[2]]], rest]

plot


Here I chose a Sin[t] variation of the thickness. To do it, I collect the evaluation points from inside ParametricPlot3D using Sow and Reap.


This list of points is in rr[[2]], whereas rr[[1]] is the plot itself. Then I modify the replacement rule you already had by making the radii of Tube into a list obtained by applying the desired continuous function to rr[[2]].


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

functions - Get leading series expansion term?

Given a function f[x] , I would like to have a function leadingSeries that returns just the leading term in the series around x=0 . For example: leadingSeries[(1/x + 2)/(4 + 1/x^2 + x)] x and leadingSeries[(1/x + 2 + (1 - 1/x^3)/4)/(4 + x)] -(1/(16 x^3)) Is there such a function in Mathematica? Or maybe one can implement it efficiently? EDIT I finally went with the following implementation, based on Carl Woll 's answer: lds[ex_,x_]:=( (ex/.x->(x+O[x]^2))/.SeriesData[U_,Z_,L_List,Mi_,Ma_,De_]:>SeriesData[U,Z,{L[[1]]},Mi,Mi+1,De]//Quiet//Normal) The advantage is, that this one also properly works with functions whose leading term is a constant: lds[Exp[x],x] 1 Answer Update 1 Updated to eliminate SeriesData and to not return additional terms Perhaps you could use: leadingSeries[expr_, x_] := Normal[expr /. x->(x+O[x]^2) /. a_List :> Take[a, 1]] Then for your examples: leadingSeries[(1/x + 2)/(4 + 1/x^2 + x), x] leadingSeries[Exp[x], x] leadingSeries[(1/x + 2 + (1 - 1/x...

mathematical optimization - Minimizing using indices, error: Part::pkspec1: The expression cannot be used as a part specification

I want to use Minimize where the variables to minimize are indices pointing into an array. Here a MWE that hopefully shows what my problem is. vars = u@# & /@ Range[3]; cons = Flatten@ { Table[(u[j] != #) & /@ vars[[j + 1 ;; -1]], {j, 1, 3 - 1}], 1 vec1 = {1, 2, 3}; vec2 = {1, 2, 3}; Minimize[{Total@((vec1[[#]] - vec2[[u[#]]])^2 & /@ Range[1, 3]), cons}, vars, Integers] The error I get: Part::pkspec1: The expression u[1] cannot be used as a part specification. >> Answer Ok, it seems that one can get around Mathematica trying to evaluate vec2[[u[1]]] too early by using the function Indexed[vec2,u[1]] . The working MWE would then look like the following: vars = u@# & /@ Range[3]; cons = Flatten@{ Table[(u[j] != #) & /@ vars[[j + 1 ;; -1]], {j, 1, 3 - 1}], 1 vec1 = {1, 2, 3}; vec2 = {1, 2, 3}; NMinimize[ {Total@((vec1[[#]] - Indexed[vec2, u[#]])^2 & /@ R...

plotting - Plot 4D data with color as 4th dimension

I have a list of 4D data (x position, y position, amplitude, wavelength). I want to plot x, y, and amplitude on a 3D plot and have the color of the points correspond to the wavelength. I have seen many examples using functions to define color but my wavelength cannot be expressed by an analytic function. Is there a simple way to do this? Answer Here a another possible way to visualize 4D data: data = Flatten[Table[{x, y, x^2 + y^2, Sin[x - y]}, {x, -Pi, Pi,Pi/10}, {y,-Pi,Pi, Pi/10}], 1]; You can use the function Point along with VertexColors . Now the points are places using the first three elements and the color is determined by the fourth. In this case I used Hue, but you can use whatever you prefer. Graphics3D[ Point[data[[All, 1 ;; 3]], VertexColors -> Hue /@ data[[All, 4]]], Axes -> True, BoxRatios -> {1, 1, 1/GoldenRatio}]