Mayavi: How can I flip the Z-axis of a scene?

Question

I am trying to flip Z-axis in the mayavi volumetric 3D plot. I figured how to rotate the camera etc, but that is not what I want. I just want to flip the direction of Z-axis. Without manipulating the data itself

#Minimum working example

import numpy as np
from mayavi import mlab

x, y, z = np.ogrid[-5:5:64j, -5:5:64j, -5:5:64j] #Generate XYZ
data = np.arange(x.shape[0])
x = x.ravel()
y = y.ravel()
z = z.ravel()
mlab.points3d(x, y, z, data) #Produce volumetric plot
mlab.axes(xlabel='X', ylabel='Y', zlabel='Z') #Display axis
mlab.orientation_axes()
mlab.show()

Answer 1

Could you please explain what you mean using non-symmetric data using this example. Do you want negative z to be at the top side? And why does rotating the camera not produce the result you want to see?

You can add the code from the macro editor (explained below).

import numpy as np
from mayavi import mlab

x, y, z = np.ogrid[-5:5:64j, -5:5:64j, -5:5:64j] #Generate XYZ
data = np.arange(x.shape[0])
x = x.ravel()
y = y.ravel()
z = z.ravel()

# Recorded script from Mayavi2
from numpy import array
try:
    engine = mayavi.engine
except (AttributeError, NameError):
    from mayavi.api import Engine
    engine = Engine()
    engine.start()
if len(engine.scenes) == 0:
    engine.new_scene()
# -------------------------------------------
scene = engine.scenes[0]
scene.scene.camera.position = [20.68813263960946, 20.334388554161922, 20.518300376103046]
scene.scene.camera.focal_point = [0.24373197555541992, 0.24373197555541992, 0.25]
scene.scene.camera.view_angle = 30.0
scene.scene.camera.view_up = [-0.41179533881878827, -0.4046701524210215, 0.81649658092772626]
scene.scene.camera.clipping_range = [15.729834995160559, 58.864284541884331]
scene.scene.camera.compute_view_plane_normal()
scene.scene.render()

mlab.points3d(x, y, z, data) #Produce volumetric plot
mlab.axes(xlabel='X', ylabel='Y', zlabel='Z') #Display axis
mlab.orientation_axes()

mlab.show()

If you really can set the view you want manually I would just do that. To get the correct coordinates to pass to mlab.view() read them from the interactive plot while rotating the scene: