Color 3-D Bars by Height

This example shows how to modify a 3-D bar plot by coloring each bar according to its height.

Create a 3-D bar graph of data from the magic function. Return the surface objects used to create the bar graph in array b. Add a colorbar to the graph.

Z = magic(5);
b = bar3(Z);
colorbar

For each surface object, get the array of z-coordinates from the ZData property. Use the array to set the CData property, which defines the vertex colors. Interpolate the face colors by setting the FaceColor properties of the surface objects to 'interp'. Use dot notation to query and set properties.

for k = 1:length(b)
    zdata = b(k).ZData;
    b(k).CData = zdata;
    b(k).FaceColor = 'interp';
end

The height of each bar determines its color. You can estimate the bar heights by comparing the bar colors to the colorbar.