Black lines across 3D surface plot

[Slowpoke]

Hello, all!

In my current application I have a 3D surface graph on which I plot power spectrum data in a waterfall display.  I made some structural changes to the program; the data values passed to the graph are the same.  Now all I get are black lines across the plot, and it seems to slow down my program as well.  The surface graph was working before, but it displayed these symptoms after a system crash.  I deleted the original control, thinking it might've been corrupted somehow, but I'm still seeing the problem on the new graph.  Can anyone tell me what might be going on?

Thanks!

P.S.  Is it normal, not being able to click and drag a 3D plot ActiveX container across a front panel?

[EmilS]

Hi Slowpoke,

you can click and drag a 3D plot ActiveX container but its sometimes difficult to get it correctly with the mouse.

Can you attach your VI with the black lines?

EmilS 

[Slowpoke]

Hi EmilS,

Here is a demo VI I created using the 3D surface reference copied from my project (3D Surface 2), plus a new one I created on this demo (3D Surface).  The behavior of the copied plot is identical to that of the plot in my project.

Thanks!

[LaRisa_M]

Hi Slowpoke,

I took a look at the VI you attached. The scale of the x-axis on the 2nd 3D Graph control was much, much smaller than the x-axis scale for the 1st graph. I right-clicked the 2nd graph, selected CWGraph3D>>Properties, and changed the x-axis range to 0-1000. Then, when I ran the VI, the graph were identical. If you try changing the scale, do you get the graph you expect?

[Slowpoke]

Hi LaRisa,

I changed the x-axis scale on the demo VI and it worked fine.  However, when I tried to change the scale on my original surface plot, the scale reverted to the miniscule range when I ran the program.  As it happens, I've had the same problem with changing the other plot attributes before, and have managed to fix them--somehow--until now.  Maybe it's gremlins.    Or maybe some part of my block diagram has become corrupted...?

Thanks!

[Slowpoke]

I should note that just deleting and recreating the surface plot on my original VI doesn't seem to work.  Thanks!

Slowpoke

[LaRisa_M · Accepted solution]

Slowpoke,

Offering helpful suggestions is tricky since I can't find a way to reproduce the behavior you describe. I guess we're Gremlin-free here in Austin.

I guess you'd want to double-check that you aren't changing the axes properties anywhere in your code. There is a VI called Axes Properies that allows you to programmatically set the auto-scale property for each axis of the 3D Graph (Graphics and Sound>>3D Graph Properties). You might play around with those settings. In LabVIEW 8.6 actually, this property is expanded to include programmatic setting of the max and min values for each axis. There was a lot of 3D Graph functionality added; if you use these graphs often, you might want to look into an upgrade.

[Slowpoke]

Hi LaRisa,

Yep, that was it.  One of the x-axis properties comes from a cluster, and I did not examine closely which cluster element I had chosen to unbundle.  Amazing how easy it is to look at something incorrect and believe nothing's wrong.   Guess I got thrown off by that strange "black line" behavior.

Oh, well.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again: they don't call me "Slowpoke" for nothing!  Thanks again!

Slowpoke 

[LaRisa_M]

Happy to help!