3D图形在数据分析、数据建模、图形和图像处理等领域中都有着广泛的应用，下面将给大家介绍一下如何在Python中使用 matplotlib进行3D图形的绘制，包括3D散点、3D表面、3D轮廓、3D直线（曲线）以及3D文字等的绘制。
准备工作：
python中绘制3D图形，依旧使用常用的绘图模块matplotlib，但需要安装mpl_toolkits工具包，安装方法如下：windows命令行进入到python安装目录下的Scripts文件夹下，执行： pip install --upgrade matplotlib即可；Linux环境下直接执行该命令。
安装好这个模块后，即可调用mpl_tookits下的mplot3d类进行3D图形的绘制。
下面以实例进行说明。
1、3D表面形状的绘制
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')
# Make data
u = np.linspace(0, 2 * np.pi, 100)
v = np.linspace(0, np.pi, 100)
x = 10 * np.outer(np.cos(u), np.sin(v))
y = 10 * np.outer(np.sin(u), np.sin(v))
z = 10 * np.outer(np.ones(np.size(u)), np.cos(v))
# Plot the surface
ax.plot_surface(x, y, z, color='r')
plt.show()
这段代码是绘制一个3D的椭球表面，结果如下：
2、3D直线（曲线）的绘制
import matplotlib as mpl
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
mpl.rcParams['legend.fontsize'] = 10
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.gca(projection='3d')
theta = np.linspace(-4 * np.pi, 4 * np.pi, 100)
z = np.linspace(-3, 3, 100)
r = z**2 + 1
x = r * np.sin(theta)
y = r * np.cos(theta)
ax.plot(x, y, z, label='parametric curve')
ax.legend()
plt.show()
这段代码用于绘制一个螺旋状3D曲线，结果如下：
3、绘制3D轮廓
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import axes3d
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import cm
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.gca(projection='3d')
X, Y, Z = axes3d.get_test_data(0.05)
cset = ax.contour(X, Y, Z, zdir='z', offset=-100, cmap=cm.coolwarm)
cset = ax.contour(X, Y, Z, zdir='x', offset=-40, cmap=cm.coolwarm)
cset = ax.contour(X, Y, Z, zdir='y', offset=40, cmap=cm.coolwarm)
ax.set_xlabel('X')
ax.set_xlim(-40, 40)
ax.set_ylabel('Y')
ax.set_ylim(-40, 40)
ax.set_zlabel('Z')
ax.set_zlim(-100, 100)
plt.show()
绘制结果如下：
4、绘制3D直方图
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')
x, y = np.random.rand(2, 100) * 4
hist, xedges, yedges = np.histogram2d(x, y, bins=4, range=[[0, 4], [0, 4]])
# Construct arrays for the anchor positions of the 16 bars.
# Note: np.meshgrid gives arrays in (ny, nx) so we use 'F' to flatten xpos,
# ypos in column-major order. For numpy >= 1.7, we could instead call meshgrid
# with indexing='ij'.
xpos, ypos = np.meshgrid(xedges[:-1] + 0.25, yedges[:-1] + 0.25)
xpos = xpos.flatten('F')
ypos = ypos.flatten('F')
zpos = np.zeros_like(xpos)
# Construct arrays with the dimensions for the 16 bars.
dx = 0.5 * np.ones_like(zpos)
dy = dx.copy()
dz = hist.flatten()
ax.bar3d(xpos, ypos, zpos, dx, dy, dz, color='b', zsort='average')
plt.show()
绘制结果如下：
5、绘制3D网状线
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import axes3d
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')
# Grab some test data.
X, Y, Z = axes3d.get_test_data(0.05)
# Plot a basic wireframe.
ax.plot_wireframe(X, Y, Z, rstride=10, cstride=10)
plt.show()
绘制结果如下：
6、绘制3D三角面片图
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
n_radii = 8
n_angles = 36
# Make radii and angles spaces (radius r=0 omitted to eliminate duplication).
radii = np.linspace(0.125, 1.0, n_radii)
angles = np.linspace(0, 2*np.pi, n_angles, endpoint=False)
# Repeat all angles for each radius.
angles = np.repeat(angles[..., np.newaxis], n_radii, axis=1)