David.Slonosky@QueensU.CA (09/23/89)
There was a review in the most recent issue of "Amigo Times" about three programs designed to display mathematical functions: "Doug's Math Aquarium", "Descartes", and "Math-Amation". My interests and needs lie in the area of looking at changes in the form of functions given changes in parameter values in the equation. I was hoping someone out there might have had experience with using these programs and could provide their impressions of them. Thanks! Dave
wfh58@leah.Albany.Edu (William F. Hammond) (09/23/89)
In article <3029*David.Slonosky@QueensU.CA>, David.Slonosky@QueensU.CA writes: > There was a review in the most recent issue of "Amigo Times" about three > programs designed to display mathematical functions: "Doug's Math Aquarium", > "Descartes", and "Math-Amation". My interests and needs lie in the area of > looking at changes in the form of functions given changes in parameter values > in the equation. I was hoping someone out there might have had experience > with using these programs and could provide their impressions of them. > Thanks! > > Dave There's an ARexx script "graph.rexx" floating around out there which you might want to take a look at. It uses some of the freely distributable extra ARexx libraries. Probably "rexxarplib.library" and "rexxmathlib.library". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ William F. Hammond Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics 518-442-4625 SUNYA wfh58@leah.albany.edu Albany, NY 12222 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
ejkst@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Eric J. Kennedy) (09/24/89)
In article <3029*David.Slonosky@QueensU.CA> David.Slonosky@QueensU.CA writes: >There was a review in the most recent issue of "Amigo Times" about three >programs designed to display mathematical functions: "Doug's Math Aquarium", >"Descartes", and "Math-Amation". My interests and needs lie in the area of >looking at changes in the form of functions given changes in parameter values >in the equation. I was hoping someone out there might have had experience with >using these programs and could provide their impressions of them. Thanks! > > Dave I have Descartes; I've never seen the other two. Descartes should be able to handle what you want, but perhaps not terribly conveniently. It does a nice job interpreting formulas, and is able to handle a variety of functions, even differentiating equations if you want. It's also very inexpensive. On the other hand, don't expect a professional quality tool. It offers little to no support for labels, titles, etc.; it does only screen dump printouts; it makes rather elementary Amiga programming errors (hardcoded "df0:", and it busy-waits incessantly); and it has no macros, command language, or anything of that sort. For $35, which is what I paid for it at Software Etc., you could do worse. But if you are a programmer type, you might write something that fits your needs better using the plplot routines posted recently. -- Eric Kennedy ejkst@cis.unix.pitt.edu
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (09/26/89)
I've used Doug's Math Aquarium quite a bit and find it extremely helpful
in visualizing various functions. The interface is different, but quite
efficient when you get used to it. And it can plot some amazingly baroque
graphs because of it's "logical" functions. You can make up functions which
have several parts that are valid for different pieces of the graph, and
because you can visualize things in two or three dimensions with contours
or plots it can show you relationships that don't appear spacially. All
neat stuff. The function parser is very good to so you can type in complex
formulas without having to use a twisted language, they are almost like
BASIC statements. (But with C constructs) An example function (I call it
the donut) would be :
A: (FNB >1 && FNB < 2) ? SIN(FNB-1) * 2 : 0
B: SQR(X**2+Y**2) /* Distance from 0,0 */
Now the program plots the value of A, and the logical expression lets
A take on two values : 0 if SQRT(X**2 + Y**2) is less than 1 or greater than
2, And sin(FNB-1)*2 if the value is between 1 and 2. This makes a donut shape
when plotted in three dimensions (well actually a half donut because the
bottom isn't there). This program is also capable of dealing with imaginary
numbers and can plot Mandelbrot and Julia sets as well. All in all it is
quite powerful and I wish I had had something like it in college.
--Chuck McManis
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