Plotting 3-tuple data points in a surface / contour plot using matplotlib

Contour plot with rpy2 + ggplot2:

from rpy2.robjects.lib.ggplot2 import ggplot, aes_string, geom_contour
from rpy2.robjects.vectors import DataFrame

# Assume that data are in a .csv file with three columns X,Y,and Z
# read data from the file
dataf = DataFrame.from_csv('mydata.csv')

p = ggplot(dataf) + \
    geom_contour(aes_string(x = 'X', y = 'Y', z = 'Z'))
p.plot()

Surface plot with rpy2 + lattice:

from rpy2.robjects.packages import importr
from rpy2.robjects.vectors import DataFrame
from rpy2.robjects import Formula

lattice = importr('lattice')
rprint = robjects.globalenv.get("print")

# Assume that data are in a .csv file with three columns X,Y,and Z
# read data from the file
dataf = DataFrame.from_csv('mydata.csv')

p = lattice.wireframe(Formula('Z ~ X * Y'), shade = True, data = dataf)
rprint(p)

With pandas and numpy to import and manipulate data, with matplot.pylot.contourf to plot the image

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.mlab import griddata

PATH='/YOUR/CSV/FILE'
df=pd.read_csv(PATH)

#Get the original data
x=df['COLUMNNE']
y=df['COLUMNTWO']
z=df['COLUMNTHREE']

#Through the unstructured data get the structured data by interpolation
xi = np.linspace(x.min()-1, x.max()+1, 100)
yi = np.linspace(y.min()-1, y.max()+1, 100)
zi = griddata(x, y, z, xi, yi, interp='linear')

#Plot the contour mapping and edit the parameter setting according to your data (http://matplotlib.org/api/pyplot_api.html?highlight=contourf#matplotlib.pyplot.contourf)
CS = plt.contourf(xi, yi, zi, 5, levels=[0,50,100,1000],colors=['b','y','r'],vmax=abs(zi).max(), vmin=-abs(zi).max())
plt.colorbar()

#Save the mapping and save the image
plt.savefig('/PATH/OF/IMAGE.png')
plt.show()

Example Image

for do a contour plot you need interpolate your data to a regular grid http://www.scipy.org/Cookbook/Matplotlib/Gridding_irregularly_spaced_data

a quick example:

>>> xi = linspace(min(X), max(X))
>>> yi = linspace(min(Y), max(Y))
>>> zi = griddata(X, Y, Z, xi, yi)
>>> contour(xi, yi, zi)

for the surface http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/mplot3d/surface3d_demo.html

>>> from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
>>> fig = figure()
>>> ax = Axes3D(fig)
>>> xim, yim = meshgrid(xi, yi)
>>> ax.plot_surface(xim, yim, zi)
>>> show()

>>> help(meshgrid(x, y))
    Return coordinate matrices from two coordinate vectors.
    [...]
    Examples
    --------
    >>> X, Y = np.meshgrid([1,2,3], [4,5,6,7])
    >>> X
    array([[1, 2, 3],
           [1, 2, 3],
           [1, 2, 3],
           [1, 2, 3]])
    >>> Y
    array([[4, 4, 4],
           [5, 5, 5],
           [6, 6, 6],
           [7, 7, 7]])

contour in 3D http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/mplot3d/contour3d_demo.html

>>> fig = figure()
>>> ax = Axes3D(fig)
>>> ax.contour(xi, yi, zi) # ax.contourf for filled contours
>>> show()