Parametric 3D helix rendered with pgfplots, with annotated 3D axes. Beautiful demo of 3D parametric curves in TikZ. From Sarmate's technical TikZ gallery (sources: MartinThoma/LaTeX-examples MIT, TeXample.net LPPL) — see also our 900+ figures on /tikz-gallery.php.
\documentclass[12pt,border=5pt]{standalone}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.18}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,angles,quotes,positioning,decorations.markings,arrows.meta,patterns,intersections,shapes,trees}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
colormap name=whitered,
width=15cm,
view={335}{50},
enlargelimits=false,
grid=major,
domain=-2:2,
y domain=-2:2,
samples=40, %60 : TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=3000000].
% see also http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/7954/5645
xlabel=$x$,
ylabel=$y$,
zlabel={$z$}
]
\addplot3+[domain=0:2*pi,samples y=0]
({sin(deg(x))},
{cos(deg(x))},
{x});
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
