First you would have to consider that the way that spring program was written may not apply to your data or function. It was a very crude, bold and awkward way of achieving an effect which should be available out of the box but isn't - colormaps depending on arbitrary functions.
The way I did it was to set up a 3D plot to plot 16 matrices, each in a different color. The colors had to be hard coded in the plot properties, so changing the color sequence or inserting an intermedeate color between two too distinct ones was a no go. A program would scan the coil surface, apply a predefined function and depending on the outcome sort the points in 16 different matrices.
So I dont plot surcafes but a huge number of single points which are formatted as big dots so they would ressemble a surface. Using less dots or smaller dots will create "holes", more dots significantly slow down manipulation and we may run into some Mathcad limitations.
So in short the method was implemented mainly out of curiosity, simply because it could be done, but maybe it shouldn't be done.
If the method will be applicable to your problem depends upon how you ellipsoid is defined and in which way you determine and define your tension function.
In case of the spiral both the spiral and the function determining the color both were dependend on the same to parameters u and v.
If that all does not discourage you, give it a try and if you encounter a problem, load up the file here and maybe I am or someone else is able to help.
