Important: The sphereplot command has been deprecated.  Use the superseding calling sequence plot3d(args, coords=spherical), which is equivalent to the plots[sphereplot](args) calling sequence.  For more information, see plot3d[coords].

The sphereplot command creates a three-dimensional plot of a surface or parametric surface in spherical coordinates.  The individual functions can be in the form of either expressions or procedures.

If L is not a list, then L represents radius given in terms of theta and phi. Otherwise, if L is a list, then the three components represent radius, theta, and phi, respectively.

The remaining arguments are interpreted as options which are specified as equations of the form option = value. These options are the same as those found in plot3d. For example, the option $\mathrm{grid}=\left[m\,n\right]$ specifies that the set of points representing the three-dimensional plot is evaluated over an m by n grid of points. For more information, see plot3d/option.

The result of a call to sphereplot is a PLOT3D structure which can be rendered by the plotting device. You can assign a PLOT3D value to a variable, save it in a file, then read it back in for redisplay. For more information, see plot3d[structure].

$\mathrm{with}\left(\mathrm{plots}\right)\:$

$\mathrm{sphereplot}\left(1\,\mathrm{\theta }=0..2\mathrm{\pi }\,\mathrm{\phi }=0..\mathrm{\pi }\right)$

$\mathrm{sphereplot}\left({1.3}^z\sin \left(\mathrm{\theta }\right)\,z=-1..2\mathrm{\pi }\,\mathrm{\theta }=0..\mathrm{\pi }\,\mathrm{style}=\mathrm{patch}\,\mathrm{color}=z\right)$

$\mathrm{sphereplot}\left(\left[z\mathrm{\theta }\,\exp \left(\frac{\mathrm{\theta }}{10}\right)\,z^2\right]\,\mathrm{\theta }=0..\mathrm{\pi }\,z=-2..2\right)$

$\mathrm{sphereplot}\left(\frac{5{\cos \left(y\right)}^2-1}{2}\,x=0..\mathrm{\pi }\,y=-\mathrm{\pi }..\mathrm{\pi }\,\mathrm{style}=\mathrm{PATCH}\right)$