2.10.13 Labeling Three-Dimensional Graphics

Mathematica provides various options for labeling three-dimensional graphics. Some of these options are directly analogous to those for two-dimensional graphics, discussed in Section 2.10.5. Others are different.

Boxed -> True	draw a cuboidal bounding box around the graphics (default)
Axes -> True	draw , and axes on the edges of the box (default for SurfaceGraphics)
Axes -> {False, False, True}	draw the axis only
FaceGrids -> All	draw grid lines on the faces of the box
PlotLabel -> text	give an overall label for the plot

Setting Axes -> True adds , and axes.

In[3]:=  Show[%, Axes -> True] Out[3]=

BoxStyle -> style	specify the style for the box
AxesStyle -> style	specify the style for axes
AxesStyle -> {{xstyle}, {ystyle}, {zstyle}}
	specify separate styles for each axis

By setting the option Axes -> True, you tell Mathematica to draw axes on the edges of the three-dimensional box. However, for each axis, there are in principle four possible edges on which it can be drawn. The option AxesEdge allows you to specify on which edge to draw each of the axes.

AxesEdge -> Automatic	use an internal algorithm to choose where to draw all axes
AxesEdge -> {xspec, yspec, zspec}	give separate specifications for each of the , and axes
None	do not draw this axis
Automatic	decide automatically where to draw this axis
{, }	specify on which of the four possible edges to draw this axis

This draws the on the edge with larger and coordinates, draws no axis, and chooses automatically where to draw the axis.

In[6]:=  Show[Graphics3D[Dodecahedron[ ]], Axes -> True, AxesEdge -> {{1, 1}, None, Automatic}] Out[6]=

When you draw the axis on a three-dimensional box, there are four possible edges on which the axis can be drawn. These edges are distinguished by having larger or smaller and coordinates. When you use the specification {, } for where to draw the axis, you can set the to be +1 or -1 to represent larger or smaller values for the and coordinates.

AxesLabel -> None	give no axis labels
AxesLabel -> zlabel	put a label on the axis
AxesLabel -> {xlabel, ylabel, zlabel}	put labels on all three axes

Ticks -> None	draw no tick marks
Ticks -> Automatic	place tick marks automatically
Ticks -> {xticks, yticks, zticks}	tick mark specifications for each axis

You can give the same kind of tick mark specifications in three dimensions as were described for two-dimensional graphics in Section 2.10.5.

FaceGrids -> None	draw no grid lines on faces
FaceGrids -> All	draw grid lines on all faces
FaceGrids -> {, , ... }	draw grid lines on the faces specified by the
FaceGrids -> {{, {, }}, ... }
	use , to determine where and how to draw grid lines on each face

Mathematica allows you to draw grid lines on the faces of the box that surrounds a three-dimensional object. If you set FaceGrids -> All, grid lines are drawn in gray on every face. By setting FaceGrids -> {, , ... } you can tell Mathematica to draw grid lines only on specific faces. Each face is specified by a list {, , }, where two of the must be 0, and the third one is +1 or -1. For each face, you can also explicitly tell Mathematica where and how to draw the grid lines, using the same kind of specifications as you give for the GridLines option in two-dimensional graphics.