The Contour 3D plot visualizes a matrix in three dimensions. It can be useful for creating an overview of an imported data set. The first two dimensions of the plot corresponds to the matrix rows and variables. The third dimension, or the amplitude, corresponds to the values of the matrix cells. The Contour 3D plot is hardware accelerated, which increases the rendering performance. The user can turn off hardware acceleration in the tools main menu (options) if problems are experienced.

Contour 3D settings:

Data range: Specifies which vectors should be plotted. The Data range for the Contour 3D plot cannot be changed since this plot type uses all available vectors of the plotted matrix.

Color: Changes the coloring of the plot. Available options are [FIXED]; the entire plot has the same color, [ROW]; All rows have the same color and the color is determined by the values of the selected row, [COLUMN]; All columns have the same color and the color is determined by the values of the selected column, [OBS CATEGORY]; the plot is colored by observation categories, [VAR CATEGORY]; The plot is colored by the variable categories, [AMPLITUDE]; Each object in the plot is colored by its value, [MISSING VALUES]; All missing values in the plot have a specific color.

Comment: Available options are [NONE], [CUSTOM] and [CATEGORY]. With [CUSTOM] the user can enter a custom comment using the advanced settings. The custom comment will be shown in the tooltip box that appears when the mouse pointer hovers above a data point. The comment is also shown in any text box created from the table toolbar. When [CATEGORY] is selected the comment will contain the observation category.