OT: 3d surfaces with transparency

On 12/8/07, Ben Bolker <bolker at ufl.edu> wrote:

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Deepayan Sarkar wrote:

On 12/8/07, Ben Bolker <bolker at ufl.edu> wrote:

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  I would be grateful if anyone had suggestions
about software that could (1) create 3D surface
plots, (2) handle transparency/alpha blending,
(3) generate output in some vector graphics format
that preserved the transparency.  I could also
live with a combination of two programs, one
to generate the basic figure and another to
modify the output surface to a transparent
color (but preserving vector-ness).

 [snip]

  Any ideas???

You could consider wireframe from lattice, but this has many caveats.
For an example, see

http://dsarkar.fhcrc.org/lattice/book/figures.html?chapter=06;figure=06_18;theme=stdColor;code=right

For that matter, whats wrong with persp?

-Deepayan

  I hadn't thought about the fact that transparency is easier
than it used to be (esp. with cairo device/PDF).
  OK, next question:  is there an easier way than the following
to create a 3D perspective plot with reference grids on some faces?
I  can pull the 3D grid code out of the rgl or scatterplot3d
packages and reimplement it here, I guess ...  another way to
hack this might (?) be to play with tick lengths?

(I had been meaning to reply, but it slipped my mind.)

I can't see an easy way to do this for persp, but it's technically
possible (though not a one-liner) for cloud and wireframe. I can look
into it if you think it will help.

-Deepayan