Dotan Cohen wrote: : In an advanced Calculus course, we are dealing with functions with 2 : (and more) variables. Is there any 3-D graphing software for Fedora : available? Something like Kalgebra, but with a bit more functions such : as multiple functions graphed at the same time, asymptote min max and : other significant points, zoom into 3-D graph, graph of derivative and : integral, etc. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the excellent Scilab system. It is put out by INRIA in France (similar to Sandia or Los Alamos Nat'l Labs here in the States.) It is FOSS software. Like Octave, it is a very high level "rapid prototyping" language. By "high level" I mean that with great ease one can do a lot of mathematical computation. As a simple example, to solve a system of equations, M*x = b, where M is the matrix of coefficients, one merely writes x = M\b; You may recognise this as Matlab code. Scilab is meant to be nearly identical to Matlab except for the plotting commands. It runs on both Window and Linux. Plotting facilities are good. You can plot multiple 3D graphs and then individually rotate them in 3D with your mouse or from the command-line. If you are an Emacs user like me, then you will enjoy using the Emacs Scilab mode instead of the native Scilab command window. The plotting facilities allow you do almost anything with regard to axis labeling, scaling, view angles. Scilab (like Matlab) has several "toolboxes" which people have written for special purposes. The one I use extensively in my research in SIP (Scilab Image Processing). Scilab is not symbolic so you won't be able to compute symbolic derivatives, but it can do numerical differentiation which can then be plotted. There is a USENET news support group and several people on it are experts who have written texts on Scilab so help is available when you have questions. Go to <http://www.scilab.org/> for more information. Dean
