title: Plotting 3-tuple data points in a surface / contour plot using matplotlib
body: <p>I have some surface data that is generated by an external program as XYZ values. I want to create the following graphs, using matplotlib:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Surface plot</li>
  <li>Contour plot</li>
  <li>Contour plot overlayed with a surface plot</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I have looked at several examples for plotting surfaces and contours in matplotlib - however, the Z values seems to be a function of X and Y  i.e. Y ~ f(X,Y).</p>
  
  <p>I assume that I will somehow need to transform my Y variables, but I have not seen any example yet, that shows how to do this. </p>
  
  <p>So, my question is this: given a set of (X,Y,Z) points, how may I generate Surface and contour plots from that data?</p>
  
  <p>BTW, just to clarify, I do NOT want to create scatter plots. Also although I mentioned matplotlib in the title, I am not averse to using rpy(2), if that will allow me to create these charts.</p>