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by **BlackRiven** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:28 pm UTC

For the past few days I've been searching for a program that can: draw functions, inequalities, intervals, and set related things, and lets you choose the colors and boundries for both axis. All the programs I found were rather limited. Does anyone here knows a good program for that? Preferably a free one?

Thanks in advance.

I've stickied this topic because it seems like the sort of thing a lot of readers of this forum would find useful. I'm also opening up the topic to include other math software suggestions. Especially of the free or cheap variety, since I think most people know that Maple and Mathematica and Matlab do all sorts of mathy things they might want, but they also know that those can be prohibitively expensive. - gmalivuk

by **Micron** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:06 am UTC

I'm not sure exactly what sort of tool you are looking for but take a look at http://www.gnuplot.info/ and http://soft.proindependent.com/qtiplot.html. Both are free tools, hopefully one of them offers what you are looking for.

by **ConMan** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:49 am UTC

For Windows, I've always been a fan of GrafEq (http://www.peda.com). It's nagware, but the nag screen is fairly innocuous. It's also powerful enough to do some very tricky things - like graphing regions based on inequalities (e.g. x²+y² < 1), control over colours, cartesian or polar inputs (although not both at once), multiple graphs on the same plot, and a distinct avoidance of crashing when you input a discontinuous function, or something tricky like sin(1/x).

by **Macbi** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:48 pm UTC

I use a good one, simply called Graph. I can't find the page for it though, for some reason my computer will only show me select bits of the Internet today.

by **the tree** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 6:54 pm UTC

I made a list some time ago.

http://www.freewebs.com/mytestingzone/r ... phmath.xml

by **malenkylizards** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:07 pm UTC

I really like this program called GraphCalc. I haven't used it too much...that is to say, I haven't used it's more complex functions, but it seems pretty detailed. It gives you very crisp 2d and 3d graphs, I use it frequently to check my calc homework.

http://www.graphcalc.com

by **Cosmologicon** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:49 am UTC

I asked about plotting a while ago. In that thread people mentioned PyChart, matplotlib, gnuplot, Sage, and pgplot.

by **btilly** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:35 am UTC

Since the question has been stickied and broadened, I'll note that octave is a free version of Matlab, Mathematica has a website where you can solve a small number of problems for free, and PARI/GP is a very good system for anyone who wants to do number theory stuff (you know, like factor large numbers quite quickly).

In general if you search, you'd be amazed at what you can find. For instance on CPAN a search for math lists dozens of pages of modules about Math in some way, shape or form. Many are admittedly useless, but often you can find something particular already built.

by **mudge** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:56 am UTC

Jenn 3D for visualizing Coxeter polytopes

by **gmalivuk** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:28 pm UTC

Cosmologicon wrote:I asked about plotting a while ago. In that thread people mentioned PyChart, matplotlib, gnuplot, Sage, and pgplot.

Indeed. I knew there had been a discussion on this within the last couple months, but I couldn't find it. Silly me for looking in the math forum instead of science. :-)

by **poizan42** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:28 pm UTC

Macbi wrote:I use a good one, simply called Graph. I can't find the page for it though, for some reason my computer will only show me select bits of the Internet today.

Were you thinking about this? http://www.padowan.dk/graph/

by **bippy** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:51 pm UTC

I saw the close/bump in the "How do you make your plots" thread. I wanted to add a vote for Pychart. If you know Python, this is the best thing I've found for making great plots. Python is also fairly easy to learn, so it's worth checking into in my opinion. http://home.gna.org/pychart/

by **llamapalooza** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:20 am UTC

For Mac OS X users, the application Grapher comes with your computer and is surprisingly useful. It doesn't do everything, but it can handle surprisingly complex graphing (incl. 3D and animated) and it will correctly display a ton of quite complex and difficult-to-display mathematical notation (which can then be copied into a word processor). It probably won't serve everyone's needs (especially considering the high levels of maths done here) but it handles many relatively simple things very easily and elegantly, and you already have it, so it can't hurt to check it out.

by **Jorpho** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 1:22 am UTC

Do folks still use Scilab and Octave? They sound like they ought to be as useful as MATLAB is.

by **Eps** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 5:57 am UTC

There is always ROOT, for power users. It's basically a command-line (ie. script) driven data visualization system with an internal language, CINT, that is almost identical to C++. Limited it ain't, but the learning curve is pretty damn steep, so be warned!

by **Guillotine** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:31 am UTC

JKGraph (obtainable at http://homepage.smc.edu/kennedy_john/ABSTRACTS.HTM ) is an awesome graphing program.

Theres also quite a few other cool programs there (Turing simulator FTW)

by **Pathway** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:59 pm UTC

There's Sage (http://www.sagemath.org/). I haven't tried it but it's supposed to be a Mathematica/Maple substitute.

by **Jorpho** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 10:21 pm UTC

Actually, as far as graphing goes, I'm awfully intrigued by Open DX.

by **miles01110** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:46 pm UTC

Is Maxima still around?

Yes it is. It's an "alternative" to Mathematica, and it's free and open source.

by **Kuciwalker** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 7:48 am UTC

I've stickied this topic because it seems like the sort of thing a lot of readers of this forum would find useful. I'm also opening up the topic to include other math software suggestions. Especially of the free or cheap variety, since I think most people know that Maple and Mathematica and Matlab do all sorts of mathy things they might want, but they also know that those can be prohibitively expensive. - gmalivuk

To anyone in uni: see if you can get it cheap/free through your school.

by **rolls** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:38 pm UTC

How has no one suggested matlab yet ?

by **mudge** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 2:26 pm UTC

rolls wrote:How has no one suggested matlab yet ?

Really?

BlackRiven wrote:I've stickied this topic because it seems like the sort of thing a lot of readers of this forum would find useful. I'm also opening up the topic to include other math software suggestions. Especially of the free or cheap variety, since I think most people know that Maple and Mathematica and Matlab do all sorts of mathy things they might want, but they also know that those can be prohibitively expensive. - gmalivuk

by **rolls** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 9:35 pm UTC

mudge wrote:
Really?

What's funny is because he changed the colour of that text I completely ignored it even though it was about 10x more readable. I apologise.

by **Adracolon** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:35 pm UTC

Singular: http://www.singular.uni-kl.de/
Is good for polynomial ring computations. (Groebner basis type things, elimination etc.).
Now you no longer have to lose sleep wondering if two ideas are equal or not :-P

Edit- Should have mentioned: it's GPL

by **-=FamilyGuy=-** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:18 am UTC

I use mathcad (v14) in college, it rocks. I also heard maple was good.

Google thoses and find them on da net !

by **Jorpho** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 4:28 am UTC

Mathcad is pretty darn cool, but it's downright user-hostile at times.

There's no closely-corresponding open-source alternative to Mathcad, is there?

by **krunzi** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 5:32 pm UTC

We use Mupad here, i think it and MathCAD are somewhat related, but i'm not sure, anyway it seems to be able to do most of the things MathCAD can do, and it can be combined with Scientific Workplace for a nice looking little package of a math/text editing program. It'll cost you some money though, but as far as i remember you can download a Mupad 'lite' that just lacks some graphical features.

by **Nimblefinger** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:58 pm UTC

Out of interest, out of the expensive packages, which is best?

by **Jorpho** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:41 pm UTC

Nimblefinger wrote:Out of interest, out of the expensive packages, which is best?

I suspect that depends entirely on what you want to do. MATLAB is versatile, provided you aren't afraid of its command-line interface. I liked Mathcad for solving lengthy algebra and matrix calculations with specific values. I've never actually used Maple before.

by **Zohar** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:24 am UTC

I asked in the help desk but didn't get a reply, I figured I'd ask here.

I'm trying to make a "map" or my friends. I want to see my friends and how I know them (for example, I'll have me in the middle of the map, a friend connected to me with a "friend" line, then his cousin connected to him with a "family member" line. I think the most "distant" person I know that way is a friend's cousin's friend's friend's friend's ex-girlfriend). I'd like to include family members in it etc.

So, anyone have any idea what I should use for it? I suppose a graph theory software would work, but I don't know any and didn't have much luck finding something suitable online. Do you know of a freeware program that can work? I don't have any programming knowledge at all, if that means anything.

by **Jorpho** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:08 pm UTC

Zohar wrote:I'm trying to make a "map" or my friends. I want to see my friends and how I know them (for example, I'll have me in the middle of the map, a friend connected to me with a "friend" line, then his cousin connected to him with a "family member" line. I think the most "distant" person I know that way is a friend's cousin's friend's friend's friend's ex-girlfriend). I'd like to include family members in it etc.

So, anyone have any idea what I should use for it? I suppose a graph theory software would work, but I don't know any and didn't have much luck finding something suitable online. Do you know of a freeware program that can work? I don't have any programming knowledge at all, if that means anything.

Well, there's not really much math involved there. You could do just fine with Dia, I imagine.

by **Zohar** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:30 pm UTC

Hmmm... Looked at it on Wikipedia and it seems like it might do the trick. I didn't know about it. I could also use Powerpoint for this but it would turn out very annoying and tedious, which is why I thought a graph theory program would be nice. Also, implementing graph theory would supposedly allow me to directly see how a person links to me, which I'm not sure this can do. But I'll try it anyway. Thanks!

by **Nimblefinger** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:30 pm UTC

How about Mathematica vs Matlab - I can see both of them do a huge amount of stuff, but are there any areas one covers which the other doesn't do so well, and are there any advantages of one over the other etc?

by **Torn Apart By Dingos** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:35 am UTC

Matlab only does numeric stuff (almost). It's useful for quickly making various plots.

Mathematica does symbolic stuff as well. It can do some pretty tough integrals. It also has pretty much any mathematical function you can think of. I don't know how efficient it is at numeric stuff, but it should be pretty good at that too.

by **mudge** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:37 pm UTC

Torn Apart By Dingos wrote:Matlab only does numeric stuff (almost). It's useful for quickly making various plots.

Mathematica does symbolic stuff as well. It can do some pretty tough integrals. It also has pretty much any mathematical function you can think of. I don't know how efficient it is at numeric stuff, but it should be pretty good at that too.

If you just want to solve an integral and don't have mathematica (or are not at your computer) go to http://integrator.wolfram.com

by **antonfire** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:10 am UTC

I'm looking for software that'd allow me to make mathematical diagrams quickly, without too much effort. I don't like to have to aim exactly at a circle after I've drawn it to get a radius, and I like to be able to adjust things after I'm done.

I used Pro/ENGINEER for an engineering class last semester, and its sketching function was pretty excellent. If my mouse was near a curve, it would assume that I wanted a point on the curve. If a line was nearly vertical, it would assume that I wanted it vertical. If two lines were about the same length, it would assume that they were supposed to be the same length. (Of course, all of these constraints could be disabled.) I could adjust dimensions and things after drawing them, by dragging things around or by entering numerical values, and the constraints that we had before (vertical lines, point on a curve) would stay satisfied. Basically, I really liked the design of it.

Of course, it was part of a 3D engineering modelling thing that I don't need and can't possibly afford for my own computer.

Now I'm looking for a (free?) program that would do some of the same nice stuff that Pro/ENGINEER Sketcher does, and I haven't been able to find anything yet.

by **GCM** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:24 pm UTC

On another note, my teach gave me a site that teaches math. Forgot the URL, and he left to teach somewhere else. Anyone got suggestions?

by **Mathmagic** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:25 pm UTC

GCM wrote:On another note, my teach gave me a site that teaches math. Forgot the URL, and he left to teach somewhere else. Anyone got suggestions?

Check out this thread.

by **Ended** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:21 pm UTC

I've just stumbled upon this page, while I was looking for software to verify some elliptic curve stuff. It allows you to run server-side Magma scripts in your web browser (with a maximum execution time of 20s).

No graphical stuff, but useful for quick computer algebra calculations, without having to bother about installing any software.

by **Mr. Altaco** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:22 am UTC

If your school has a license for it, as mine does, then Logger Pro is an amazing tool, you can do tons of stuff with it if you know how.

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