On 20/11/2007, Dean S. Messing <deanm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > 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 Thanks, I'll look into Scilab. I'm beginning to realize that I may need one of these 'programming languages' solutions instead of a GUI program such as Kalgebra. Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
