Matplotlib 3D scatter plot with color gradient

Question

How can I create a 3D plot with a color gradient for the points? See the example below, which works for a 2D scatter plot.

Edit (thanks to Chris): What I\'m expectin

Answer 1

Here is an example for 3d scatter with gradient colors:

import matplotlib.cm as cmx
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
def scatter3d(x,y,z, cs, colorsMap='jet'):
    cm = plt.get_cmap(colorsMap)
    cNorm = matplotlib.colors.Normalize(vmin=min(cs), vmax=max(cs))
    scalarMap = cmx.ScalarMappable(norm=cNorm, cmap=cm)
    fig = plt.figure()
    ax = Axes3D(fig)
    ax.scatter(x, y, z, c=scalarMap.to_rgba(cs))
    scalarMap.set_array(cs)
    fig.colorbar(scalarMap)
    plt.show()

Of course, you can choose the scale to range between different values, like 0 and 1.