Path with complicated colormap in TikZ

Question

I want to draw a path in tikz whose local color is a function of position. Here are two examples of what I have in mind:

colored ptahs

I found the answers from Path following color gradient in TikZ very instructive. However, in the examples the used colormaps are simple gradients. I need to define a more complicated colormap. Is there a simple way to do this? Or are there even pre-defined colormaps? Or should I use pgfplots?

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 10 '13 at 05:21

8

pgfplots offers something on these lines. An example from the manual:

\documentclass[border=10pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.9}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[axis lines=none]
\addplot[mesh,samples=1000,domain=-4*pi:4*pi,line width=2pt] {sin(deg(x))};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

enter image description here

answered Dec 10 '13 at 05:21

2

This color map is so much simpler than the shown in the question. – osjerick Dec 11 '13 at 19:42

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 13 '13 at 12:36

I was able to produce the figure with the non-trivial colormap by computing the coordinates and colors externally and using the meta point information in pgfplots. Here is the code:

\documentclass[tikz]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}

\pgfplotsset{compat=1.8}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}

\begin{scope}[yshift=0cm]
    \draw[->, >=latex, color=black, line width=1.0pt, cap=round] (0.00, 0.00) -- (3.5, 0.00);
    \draw[->, >=latex, color=black, line width=1.0pt, cap=round] (0.00, -1.00) -- (0.0, 1.00);
    \begin{axis}[x=3cm, y=1cm, ticks=none, axis lines=none, colormap/jet, anchor=origin]
        \addplot[mesh, ultra thick, point meta=\thisrow{c}, shader=interp] table[x=t, y=x] {sine_wave_high_res_01.dat};
    \end{axis}
\end{scope}


\begin{scope}[xshift=5.0cm, yshift=0cm]
    \draw[->, >=latex, color=black, line width=1.0pt, cap=round] (-1.10, 0.00) -- (1.25, 0.00);
    \draw[->, >=latex, color=black, line width=1.0pt, cap=round] (0.00, -1.10) -- (0.0, 1.10);
    \begin{axis}[x=0.2cm, y=0.2cm, ticks=none, axis lines=none, colormap/jet, anchor=origin]
        \addplot[mesh, ultra thick, point meta=\thisrow{c}, shader=interp] table[x=x, y=y] {spiral_high_res_01.dat};
    \end{axis}
\end{scope}

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Path with complicated colormap in TikZ

2 Answers2