Numerical Computing with Python

Caveats of Matplotlib 3D

Due to the lack of a true 3D graphical rendering backend (such as OpenGL) and proper algorithm for detecting 3D objects' intersections, the 3D plotting capabilities of Matplotlib are not great but just adequate for typical applications. In the official Matplotlib FAQ (https://matplotlib.org/mpl_toolkits/mplot3d/faq.html), the author noted that 3D plots may not look right at certain angles. Besides, we also reported that mplot3d would fail to clip bar charts if zlim is set (https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/8902; see also https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/209). Without improvements in the 3D rendering backend, these issues are hard to fix.

To better illustrate the latter issue, let's try ...