How to generating surface without plotting?

I wonder if it's possible to create a surface by ''surf'' without plotting?

That means, I only want the surface data, but I don't want the figure.

Anyone has idea?

Thanks a lot and happy new year :)

[Ameer Hamza]

Can you explain what surface data are you referring to?

[Daniel Chou]

Sure!

For instance,

I would like to generate a surface of ellipsoid by

[x, y, z] = ellipsoid(3,3,5,1,0.5,0.5)
s=surf(x,y,z)
direction = [rand() rand() rand()];
rotate(s,direction,rand()*360)

Then use this surface to do further things

The plot of ellipsoid will be generated when I use ''surf'' command.

I just wanna know if it's possible to purely generate surface by surf without plotting it!

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

[Ameer Hamza]

Since it is a graphical object, you cannot create it without plotting somewhere. However, you can make the figure invisible so that it does not appear on screen

[x, y, z] = ellipsoid(3,3,5,1,0.5,0.5)
f = figure('Visible', 'off');
ax = axes(f);
s = surf(ax,x,y,z)
direction = [rand() rand() rand()];
rotate(s,direction,rand()*360)

[Daniel Chou]

I'll try this later.

Thanks for your patience and replying

Happy new year as well :)

Sincerely

Daniel

Answer 2

[Cris LaPierre]

If I look at the first example on the surf documentation page, it first creates X, Y and Z, then uses surf to plot/create the surface. So is what you want X,Y and Z?

% Example modified to create surface data but not the surface
[X,Y] = meshgrid(1:0.5:10,1:20);
Z = sin(X) + cos(Y);
% surf(X,Y,Z)

[Daniel Chou]

Thanks for response

Actually I'm currently design a code to generate the ellipsoid inclusions in given space.

I try the build-in function of AlphaShape to detect overlapping, if the current ellipsoids are too close to each other, the current ellipsoid will be replaced by a new ellipsoid.

However, since I use the ''surf'' function to convert the ellipsoid [x,y,z] in to surface, the plot (from surf command) will be retained.

The output figure will look like a disaster.

Sincerely and happy new year!

Daniel