kuva surface3d

Render a 3D surface plot from a tabular file. Quads are depth-sorted and filled with a Z-colormap. Both long-format (x, y, z triples) and matrix (Z-value grid) inputs are supported.

Input format

Long format (default) — one row per grid point:

x	y	z
0	0	0.5
0	1	1.2
1	0	0.8
1	1	2.1

Matrix format (--matrix) — one row of Z values per line, no header. Row index = Y, column index = X.

0.5	0.8	1.2	1.5
0.8	1.1	1.6	2.0
1.2	1.6	2.1	2.5

Basic examples

# Long-format surface
kuva surface3d data.tsv --x x --y y --z z -o surface.svg

# With colormap and wireframe disabled
kuva surface3d data.tsv --x x --y y --z z \
    --z-color viridis --no-wireframe -o viridis.svg

# Matrix input, upsampled to 50×50 for smooth appearance
kuva surface3d matrix.tsv --matrix --resolution 50 -o smooth.svg

# Semi-transparent surface with custom view
kuva surface3d data.tsv --x x --y y --z z \
    --alpha 0.6 --azimuth -45 --elevation 35 -o alpha.svg

# Disable all decorations
kuva surface3d data.tsv --x x --y y --z z \
    --no-grid --no-box -o minimal.svg

All flags

Data selection

FlagDefaultDescription
--x <COL>0X column (long format)
--y <COL>1Y column (long format)
--z <COL>2Z column (long format)
--matrix—Read input as a matrix of Z values

View and rendering

FlagDefaultDescription
--azimuth <DEG>-60Azimuth viewing angle
--elevation <DEG>30Elevation viewing angle
--z-color <MAP>—Z-colormap (viridis, inferno, grayscale)
--color <CSS>—Uniform surface color (when no colormap)
--alpha <F>1.0Surface opacity (0–1)
--no-wireframe—Disable wireframe grid edges on the mesh
--resolution <N>—Upsample to N×N grid via bilinear interpolation
--z-axis-left—Place Z-axis on the left side
--no-grid—Hide grid lines on back walls
--no-box—Hide wireframe bounding box

Axis labels

FlagDescription
--x-label <TEXT>X-axis label
--y-label <TEXT>Y-axis label
--z-label <TEXT>Z-axis label

Output / appearance

FlagDescription
-o <FILE>Output file (.svg, .png, .pdf; default: stdout)
--title <TEXT>Chart title
--width <PX>Canvas width
--height <PX>Canvas height
--theme <NAME>Visual theme