Panning is done by clicking the middle mouse button, and zooming is done by

right-clicking the scene and dragging the mouse up and down. Unlike 2D plots,

the toolbar pan and zoom buttons are not used.

mplot3d/view_angles.rst

.. _toolkit_mplot3d-view-angles:

mplot3d View Angles

How to define the view angle

The position of the viewport "camera" in a 3D plot is defined by three angles:

*elevation*, *azimuth*, and *roll*. From the resulting position, it always

points towards the center of the plot box volume. The angle direction is a

common convention, and is shared with

`PyVista <https://docs.pyvista.org/api/core/camera.html>`_ and

`MATLAB <https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/view.html>`_

(though MATLAB lacks a roll angle). Note that a positive roll angle rotates the

viewing plane clockwise, so the 3d axes will appear to rotate

counter-clockwise.

.. image:: /_static/mplot3d_view_angles.png

:align: center

:scale: 50

Rotating the plot using the mouse will control only the azimuth and elevation,

but all three angles can be set programmatically::

Primary view planes

To look directly at the primary view planes, the required elevation, azimuth,

and roll angles are shown in the diagram of an "unfolded" plot below. These are

further documented in the `.mplot3d.axes3d.Axes3D.view_init` API.

.. plot:: gallery/mplot3d/view_planes_3d.py

:align: center

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

def annotate_axes(ax, text, fontsize=18):

ax.text(x=0.5, y=0.5, z=0.5, s=text,

va="center", ha="center", fontsize=fontsize, color="black")

views = [('XY', (90, -90, 0)),

('XZ', (0, -90, 0)),

('YZ', (0, 0, 0)),

('-XY', (-90, 90, 0)),

('-XZ', (0, 90, 0)),

('-YZ', (0, 180, 0))]

layout = [['XY', '.', 'L', '.'],

['XZ', 'YZ', '-XZ', '-YZ'],

['.', '.', '-XY', '.']]

fig, axd = plt.subplot_mosaic(layout, subplot_kw={'projection': '3d'},

figsize=(12, 8.5))

for plane, angles in views:

axd[plane].set_xlabel('x')

axd[plane].set_ylabel('y')

axd[plane].set_zlabel('z')

axd[plane].set_proj_type('ortho')

axd[plane].view_init(elev=angles[0], azim=angles[1], roll=angles[2])

axd[plane].set_box_aspect(None, zoom=1.25)

label = f'{plane}\n{angles}'

annotate_axes(axd[plane], label, fontsize=14)

for plane in ('XY', '-XY'):

axd[plane].set_zticklabels([])

axd[plane].set_zlabel('')

for plane in ('XZ', '-XZ'):

axd[plane].set_yticklabels([])

axd[plane].set_ylabel('')

for plane in ('YZ', '-YZ'):

axd[plane].set_xticklabels([])

axd[plane].set_xlabel('')

label = 'mplot3d primary view planes\n' + 'ax.view_init(elev, azim, roll)'

annotate_axes(axd['L'], label, fontsize=18)

axd['L'].set_axis_off()

plt.show()