# PGFPlots 3D Cylindrical coordinate axes

I am trying to plot some data in a cylindrical coordinate system using PGFPlots. Using the code at the bottom I have been able to create this:

However, I would like to ditch the background box for a circle at the bottom with labels for the angles, as well as a z-axis either in the center, or placed to one side. I have tried the solution provided by hugovdberg here, but I get the following error message:

Package PGF Math Error: Could not parse input '' as a floating point number, sorry. The unreadable part was near ''..


Is there a simple way to edit that contribution, or another way to make what I am looking for?

The data I used is available here A-1.dat:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{geometry}

\usepackage{pgfplots}

\geometry{
paperwidth=10cm,
paperheight=10cm,
margin=0.5cm
}

\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
height=9cm,
width=9cm,
view={300}{30},
unit vector ratio*=5 5 1,
data cs=polar,
zmin=0, zmax=25,
xmin=-2.5,xmax=2.5,
ymin=-2.5,ymax=2.5,
grid=major,
xticklabel style={xshift=4pt},
yticklabel style={yshift=-5pt},
xtick={-2,-1,...,2},
ytick={-2,-1,...,2},
z buffer=sort
]
table[x=angle, y=dist, z=power, col sep=comma]{A-1.dat};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}


Apparently the problem was caused by z buffer=sort, so moved that inside the addplot3 command instead.

Adding clip=false to the axis options was also necessary in order to avoid clipping the node-text.

The following produces a correct result:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{geometry}

\usepackage{pgfplots}

\geometry{
paperwidth=10cm,
paperheight=10cm,
margin=0.5cm
}

\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
height=9cm,
width=9cm,
view={300}{30},
unit vector ratio*=5 5 1,
data cs=polar,
zmin=0, zmax=25,
xmin=-2.5,xmax=2.5,
ymin=-2.5,ymax=2.5,
xticklabel style={xshift=4pt},
yticklabel style={yshift=-5pt},
xtick=\empty,
ytick=\empty,
axis y line = none,
axis x line = none,
axis z line = none,
clip = false,
]
\foreach \thet in {0,30,...,330} {
% some trickery to get the label expanded