# Drawing of "dotted" yz-plane in tikz

I am trying to draw my first picture in tikz and I need a small help with the following. I want to draw a family of "surfaces" that consists of all the planes parallel to yz-plane, and all the individual points on the yz-plane. I drew the planes but am struggling with the points. So what I need is to fill the yz-plane with dots. Could you give me a help to fill this gap?

Below I put my code so far:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\coordinate (O) at (0, 0, 0);
\draw[line width=0.3mm,->] (0,0,0) -- (4,0,0) node[anchor=north east]{$y$};
\draw[line width=0.3mm,->] (0,0,0) -- (0,4,0) node[anchor=north east]{$z$};
\draw[line width=0.3mm,->] (0,0,0) -- (0,0,7) node[anchor=east]{$x$};
\filldraw[color=blue!10!white,opacity=0.8] (0, 0, 2) -- (0, 3.5, 2) -- (2, 3.5, 2) --   (2, 0, 2) -- cycle;
\draw  (0, 0, 2) -- (0, 3.5, 2) -- (2, 3.5, 2) --   (2, 0, 2) -- cycle;
\filldraw[color=blue!10!white,opacity=0.8] (0, 0, 2.5) -- (0, 3.5, 2.5) -- (2, 3.5, 2.5) --   (2, 0, 2.5) -- cycle;
\draw  (0, 0, 2.5) -- (0, 3.5, 2.5) -- (2, 3.5, 2.5) --   (2, 0, 2.5) -- cycle;
\filldraw[color=blue!10!white,opacity=0.8] (0, 0, 3) -- (0, 3.5, 3) -- (2, 3.5, 3) --   (2, 0, 3) -- cycle;
\draw  (0, 0, 3) -- (0, 3.5, 3) -- (2, 3.5, 3) --   (2, 0, 3) -- cycle;
\filldraw[color=blue!10!white,opacity=0.8] (0, 0, 3.5) -- (0, 3.5, 3.5) -- (2, 3.5, 3.5) --   (2, 0, 3.5) -- cycle;
\draw  (0, 0, 3.5) -- (0, 3.5, 3.5) -- (2, 3.5, 3.5) --   (2, 0, 3.5) -- cycle;
\filldraw[color=blue!10!white,opacity=0.8] (0, 0, 4) -- (0, 3.5, 4) -- (2, 3.5, 4) --   (2, 0, 4) -- cycle;
\draw  (0, 0, 4) -- (0, 3.5, 4) -- (2, 3.5, 4) --   (2, 0, 4) -- cycle;
\filldraw[color=blue!10!white,opacity=0.8] (0, 0, 4.5) -- (0, 3.5, 4.5) -- (2, 3.5, 4.5) --   (2, 0, 4.5) -- cycle;
\draw  (0, 0, 4.5) -- (0, 3.5, 4.5) -- (2, 3.5, 4.5) --   (2, 0, 4.5) -- cycle;
\filldraw[color=blue!10!white,opacity=0.8] (0, 0, 5) -- (0, 3.5, 5) -- (2, 3.5, 5) --   (2, 0, 5) -- cycle;
\draw  (0, 0, 5) -- (0, 3.5, 5) -- (2, 3.5, 5) --   (2, 0, 5) -- cycle;
\filldraw[color=blue!10!white,opacity=0.8] (0, 0, 5.5) -- (0, 3.5, 5.5) -- (2, 3.5, 5.5) --   (2, 0, 5.5) -- cycle;
\draw  (0, 0, 5.5) -- (0, 3.5, 5.5) -- (2, 3.5, 5.5) --   (2, 0, 5.5) -- cycle;
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


• Welcome to TeX.SX! Please make your code compilable (if possible), or at least complete it with \documentclass{...}, the required \usepackage's, \begin{document}, and \end{document}. That may seem tedious to you, but think of the extra work it represents for TeX.SX users willing to give you a hand. Help them help you: remove that one hurdle between you and a solution to your problem. Aug 1, 2017 at 14:41
• do you like to replace fill (blue!...) with pattern of dots? see pattern library on page 666 in tikz & pgf manual (V3.0.1.a) Aug 1, 2017 at 14:48
• @dexteritas Ups sorry I didn't think of that... I'll fix it :)
– T.P.
Aug 1, 2017 at 14:51
• @Zarko No, I don't want to change my planes. They are exactly what I need. I want to fill only the plane x=0 with dots. So only the plane in the backround.
– T.P.
Aug 1, 2017 at 14:53
• @T.P., than apply patter to this plane ... with something like \fill[pattern=dots, pattern color=gray] (0,0) ... ;, in preamble you should add \usetikzlibrary{patterns} Aug 1, 2017 at 15:20

I made a command \plane for the redundancies to shorten the code and added a dotted plane at x=0, using the tikzlibrary patterns and the option pattern=dots.

Note: I use \draw[fill=<color>] to draw the black border and also the filling with one command. Besides you can use rectangle to draw a rectangle between two points.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{patterns}

\begin{document}

\newcommand{\plane}[2][fill=blue!10!white]{
\draw[opacity=0.8,#1] (0, 0, #2) rectangle (2, 3.5, #2);
}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\coordinate (O) at (0, 0, 0);
\draw[line width=0.3mm,->] (O) --++ (4,0,0) node[anchor=north east]{$y$};
\draw[line width=0.3mm,->] (O) --++ (0,4,0) node[anchor=north east]{$z$};
\draw[line width=0.3mm,->] (O) --++ (0,0,7) node[anchor=east]{$x$};

\plane[draw=none,pattern=dots]{0};

\foreach \x in {2,2.5,...,5.5}
\plane{\x};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}


• Thanks a lot! It's exactly how I imagined my picture should be :D
– T.P.
Aug 1, 2017 at 15:32
• If you like my answer and it was helpful, please consider upvoting (by clicking on the arrows next to the score) and/or marking it as the accepted answer (by clicking on the checkmark ✓). Aug 2, 2017 at 7:03
• Sure, I can click the checkmark. As for the upvoating, I tried but I can't do it, I think because of my low reputation. Step by step I learn how to use this site :D
– T.P.
Aug 2, 2017 at 22:45

let me convert my comment to an answer ... some how similar to dexteritas answer:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{patterns}

\usepackage[active,tightpage]{preview}% only for test
\PreviewEnvironment{tikzpicture}
\setlength\PreviewBorder{1em}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[L/.append style={line width=0.3mm,->}]
\coordinate (O) at (0, 0, 0);
\draw[L] (O) --++ (4,0,0) node[below left] {$y$};
\draw[L] (O) --++ (0,4,0) node[below left] {$z$};
\draw[L] (O) --++ (0,0,7) node[left]       {$x$};
%
\fill[pattern=dots] (O) |- (2, 3.5, 0) |- cycle;
%
\foreach \x in {2,2.5,...,5.5}
\draw[fill=blue!10!white,opacity=0.6] (0,0,\x) |- (2,3.5,\x) |- cycle;
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


• @T.P., here is habit that thankfulness is expressed by voting of answer and accepting one, which solve your problem on the best way :) Aug 1, 2017 at 21:51