Matplotlib 3D plot zorder issue

Question

I have a plot consisting of a blue surface (plotted via plot_surface) and a red sphere (plotted via scatter). The zorder of the surface is set to 0

Answer 1

This is still an issue in Matplotlib 1.5.3 (2016). The alternative that @tacaswell (who is a co-lead on Matplotlib dev) recommends is to handle 3D plotting using Mayavi which is relatively unique amongst Python plotting libraries in that it does not use Matplotlib as a backend like many other projects do (Pandas, Seaborn, ggplot).

I was able to install Mayavi on OSX with a minimum of fuss using Homebrew and pip.

#/bin/bash
# vtk is a mayavi requirement
brew install vtk
pip install mayavi
# Port your matplotlib code to mayavi
# Profit...