Eric’s pick this week is MATLAB 3D Figure to 3D (X)HTML by Dirk-Jan Kroon.

Dirk-Jan Kroon’s submission makes it easy to transfer 3D MATLAB plots to an interactive graphic on a web page. The tool doesn’t just translate geometry – it even includes transparency and lighting effects! You can build a complex scientific visualization in MATLAB and share it on your research web page.

Dirk-Jan says that the tool currently supports "Axes, Patch, Line, Surface and Light" objects. I decided to try this out on my favorite 3D model, a human femur bone, and added lighting and material effects for good measure. The model has an interesting back story...

In grad school I needed an accurate 3D model of a human femur bone for a project. Somehow, I convinced the university med school to loan me a real human femur bone! I don’t know where this thing came from, but I did get a great 3D scan from it.

Here's the model in MATLAB:

And here's the model in my web browser, where the resulting visualization supports zoom, pan, and rotate operations:

The tool creates both the 3D model as well as a sample web page with the model embedded into it. You can view the page with any of these popular web browsers:

The visualization is based on the x3dom framework. Be sure to read the x3dom supported browser page if you have difficulties displaying the example that Dirk-Jan provided with his submission. Also, if you have an older graphics driver you may need to update it.

Leave us a comment with your thoughts here, or leave a comment for Dirk-Jan.

Get the MATLAB code

Published with MATLAB® 7.12