Enter surf2patch .

Have you used surf2patch in a creative way? Let me know in the comments below! Happy coding, Your MATLAB blogger

% Add some lighting for drama camlight headlight; lighting gouraud; axis equal; colorbar;

% Create surface data [X,Y,Z] = peaks(30); % Convert to patch format [f,v] = surf2patch(X,Y,Z);

If you’ve ever worked with 3D graphics in MATLAB, you’re likely familiar with the surf function. It’s great for creating shaded surface plots. But what if you need more control? What if you want to manipulate the faces and vertices directly, combine multiple surfaces, or export your plot to another format?

The result looks identical to a surf plot, but now you have direct access to f and v . Here’s something less documented: surf2patch can also return face vertex colors (CData) from a surface:

% Display as a patch figure; patch('Faces', f, 'Vertices', v, ... 'FaceColor', 'interp', ... 'EdgeColor', 'none', ... 'FaceLighting', 'gouraud');