R help - Dec 2007 - OT: 3d surfaces with transparency

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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).

  I've been working with the rgl package, but
can't get the transparency to work for vector
output (rgl.postscript).  The rgl package uses
the gl2ps library -- by default transparency
is disabled in the output (GL2PS_NO_BLENDING
is set), giving reasonable PDF output but
without transparency.  Enabling it in the
source code gives ugly results.

  I ported my graphics to Mathematica, but its
PDF output (and SVG output) are both wonky.

  Any ideas???

  Ben Bolker

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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).
>
>   I've been working with the rgl package, but
> can't get the transparency to work for vector
> output (rgl.postscript).  The rgl package uses
> the gl2ps library -- by default transparency
> is disabled in the output (GL2PS_NO_BLENDING
> is set), giving reasonable PDF output but
> without transparency.  Enabling it in the
> source code gives ugly results.
>
>   I ported my graphics to Mathematica, but its
> PDF output (and SVG output) are both wonky.
>
>   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