Plotting a 2D gaussian sample

Question

Can you please help me with making a 2D Guassian sample with specified means and variances?

I only know how to make a guassian curve :D

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{paralist,pst-func, pst-plot, pst-math, pstricks-add,pgfplots}
\usetikzlibrary{patterns,matrix,arrows}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
    \begin{axis}[hide axis,clip=false,xmin=-4,xmax=4,xlabel={X},ymin=0,ymax=1] 
    \addplot[color=lime, samples=100] {1/sqrt(2)*exp(-(x+1)^2/1)} ;
    \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

And here is the formula for it: enter image description here

And this would be an example of three normal distributions together: enter image description here

Since this is not a math question site, you should supply the math related to what you want to graph, and explain what parts you are having difficulty with. — Peter Grill, Apr 09 '13 at 18:15
Hi Naji. Usually, we don't put a greeting or a "thank you" in our posts. While this might seem strange at first, it is not a sign of lack of politeness, but rather part of our trying to keep everything very concise. Accepting and upvoting answers is the preferred way here to say "thank you" to users who helped you. — Claudio Fiandrino, Apr 09 '13 at 18:20
formula is on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution — long tom, Apr 09 '13 at 18:21
@PeterGrill, well I thought the normal distribution is famous enough to not to express it here. — Naji, Apr 09 '13 at 18:22

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

For this, you need a way to generate normally distributed random numbers. One way of doing this is to use the Box-Muller transform.

Here's an example of using PGFPlots for this (based on my answer to TikZ: Drawing the same data with scatter plots and parallel coordinates). I've plotted the marginal distributions to show that the numbers are indeed approximately normal:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
% Create a function for generating inverse normally distributed numbers using the Box–Muller transform
\pgfmathdeclarefunction{invgauss}{2}{%
  \pgfmathparse{sqrt(-2*ln(#1))*cos(deg(2*pi*#2))}%
}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
    axis equal image,
    xmin=-2.5,xmax=2.5,
    ymin=-2.5, ymax=2.5,
    enlargelimits=false,
    xtick=data, 
    xticklabel=\empty,
    ytick=data,
    yticklabel=\empty,
    extra x ticks={-2,...,2},
    every extra x tick/.style={
        tick align=outside,
        xticklabel=\pgfmathprintnumber{\tick}
    },
    extra y ticks={-2,...,2},
    every extra y tick/.style={
        tick align=outside,
        yticklabel=\pgfmathprintnumber{\tick}
    }
]
\addplot [only marks, samples=100] ({invgauss(rnd,rnd)},{invgauss(rnd,rnd)});
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Plotting a 2D gaussian sample

1 Answers1

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