Mayavi points3d with different size and colors

Question

Is it possible in mayavi to specify individually both the size and the colors of every point?

That API is cumbersome to me.

points3d(x, y, z...)
poi         


        

Answer 1

I agree that the API that Mayavi provides here is unpleasant. The Mayavi documentation suggests the following hack (which I have paraphrased slightly) to independently adjust the size and color of points.

pts = mayavi.mlab.quiver3d(x, y, z, sx, sy, sz, scalars=c, mode="sphere", scale_factor=f)
pts.glyph.color_mode = "color_by_scalar"
pts.glyph.glyph_source.glyph_source.center = [0,0,0]

This will display x,y,z points as spheres, even though you're calling mayavi.mlab.quiver3d. Mayavi will use the norm of sx,sy,sz vectors to determine the size the points, and will use the scalar values in c to index into a color map. You can optionally supply a constant size scaling factor, which will be applied to all the points.

This is certainly not the most self-documenting code you'll ever write, but it works.