2.30 3D Convex Hull

Summary

The 3D Convex Hull app is used to calculate the convex hull envelope (boundary) for a given set of XYZ scatter points.

Tutorial

In this tutorial, we will generate a set of random data points and use 3D Convex Hull app to plot the convex hull envelope and output its volume and area.

  1. Start from a new project. With the empty worksheet active, click Add New Column button Add New Column button.png on the Standard toolbar to add a third column. Click on this new column and select Set as Z button Set as Z button.png from the popped-up mini toolbar.
  2. Highlight all 3 columns and click button Set Column Values with Uniform Random Numbers button.png on the Standard toolbar to set column values with uniform random numbers. Now we have a set of XYZ data.
    3D Convex Hull App Source Worksheet.png
  3. Highlight all 3 columns and select menu Plot > 3D: 3D Scatter to plot a 3D Scatter graph.
  4. With the graph active, click 3D Convex Hull app icon 3D Convex Hull button.png from App Gallery. A Convex_Hull_3D dialog will open. The 3D Scatter is auto-picked as Input XYZ.
    3D Convex Hull App Dialog.png
  5. Click OK button to plot the convex hull as a 3D Surface onto the source graph directly. And the calculated Volume and Surface Area will be output to Results Log.
    3D Convex Hull App Result.png