Note that based on your license type, you may not have access to these features. Please contact your account manager to learn more.
The Model Surface Plotting tool allows you to visualize model predictions across two or three input features. Once a model has been trained on the platform—or saved by another user—you can leverage this tool to explore relationships between inputs and outputs.
Accessing the Tool
You can access the Model Surface tool from navigation bar by selecting Calculate > View Model Surface. You can also access it as an extension of the Analyze Experiments page.
Plot Settings
At the top of the page, there are four dropdown menus:
- Select Model — Choose which model to visualize. Any model saved from the Analyze Experiments page will be available to all project members.
- Select Output — Select the output of interest. Only outputs included in the model are available for selection. The output will appear as a multicolor surface on the plot.
- Lighter colors = higher predicted values.
- Darker colors = lower predicted values.
- Select Vertical Input — Choose the input feature to display on the Y-axis (e.g., ingredients, process parameters, or calculations).
- Select Horizontal Input — Choose the input feature to display on the X-axis (e.g., ingredients, process parameters, or calculations).
Plot Example
For example, consider the output Adhesion with inputs Surfactant 1 and Defoamer 2:
- Increasing Surfactant 1 → higher predicted adhesion values.
- Increasing Defoamer 2 → lower predicted adhesion values.
Customizing the Plot
The plot can be customized to change the display or add detail:
- Show in 3D Toggle the 3D mode to rotate and interact with the surface plot using your cursor.
- Plot Model Certainty Switch the color scheme to display model certainty instead of predicted output values.
- Lighter colors = higher certainty.Darker colors = lower certainty (often in regions with sparse training data).
- Show Samples Overlay the data points used to build the model surface. Overlaps may occur if two experiments share the same input feature levels.
- Axis Settings Click the ⚙️ icon > Axis Settings to adjust axis ranges, change data point colors, or apply a different surface color scheme.
Fixing Inputs
The Fix Other Inputs To… setting lets you lock all non-selected inputs to a selected base formulation. The surface plot then shows model predictions for the selected output as only the chosen inputs vary. All other input values remain constant, based on the base formulation you select.
Ternary Plots
To visualize three input features simultaneously, you can switch to a Ternary Plot by clicking the button at the top of the page. Ternary plot lot interpretation works the same way as 2D plots, but with three axes available for feature selection.
Saving Plots
Both 2D Surface Plots and Ternary Plots can be saved directly to a notebook by clicking the ⚙️ icon > Save Visualization.
