How to surf very small values keeping the same ratio?

I'm having a solution with very small values and I need to surf it; this is how a part of the solution looks like:

I'm also using the same aspect ratio and because the values are so small the surf looks like a 2D plot.

It should look as if I would take a pencil and a piece of paper and I would draw it. Is there any way to keep the same aspect ratio but not to look like in the figure? Thank you.

Answer 1

[John D'Errico]

I THINK what you are asking is how to make the surface show there is little variation in z. I'll make up an example...

[X,Y] = meshgrid(0:5,0:6);
Z = (X+Y)*1e-3;
surf(X,Y,Z)
box on
view(-60,10)

And it looks like the surface is doing something significant, when really, it is pretty boring. I'll redo the plot, then add one extra call now.

surf(X,Y,Z)
box on
axis equal
view(-60,10)

So viewed from the same angle, now we see that one of the surfaces is pretty boring, yet the first looks as if something is happening. The difference was the "axis equal" command.

[Alexandra Roxana]

That's right, but the difference between the 0 and 2 on the x-axis and the difference between 0 and 0.002 on the z-axis is almost the same, which in reality isn't.

[Torsten]

But how to escape from Flatland if you don't use this trick ? If the differences in one of the three dimensions is small, your plot will be almost 2d - that's a simple fact.

Answer 2

[Alan Stevens]

Multiply them all by 1e4.

[Alexandra Roxana]

I don't want them to be multiplied, those are the values of pressure and they have to be very small.

[Alan Stevens]

The idea is you scale them for purposes of the graph. You then indicate the scaling by putting the appropriately scaled units on the z-axis.

[Alexandra Roxana]

And how do I do that to also keep the aspect ratio? With zlim?

[Alan Stevens]

I guess you need to use John's approach (below).