Advise on graph plotting software

Hello folks,

Need your advise on choosing a nice and free information graphics software for windows. I'm particularly interested in plotting simple Cartesian graphs of functions and differential equations.

• I'd love to be able to plot tangent lines to a curve.
• Would be great if it let me paint bounded areas under a curve.
• Even better if it drew partitions illustrating Riemann sums.
• Must make use of antialiasing.
• Must be able to export to png, gif or jpg.

This is software I'll be using as an educational tool both in-class and as a means to compile study material for the students.

matplotlib is the best piece of plotting software I've used, although I'm guessing you're wanting a program, not a library. I haven't run across anything that comes close to the plot quality of matplotlib.

Might try using Sage, as it includes matplotlib.

Sage: Open Source Mathematics Software

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Originally Posted by Epy

matplotlib is the best piece of plotting software I've used, although I'm guessing you're wanting a program, not a library. I haven't run across anything that comes close to the plot quality of matplotlib.

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I second this.
Also, using the library and not a full blown program gives you a lot of flexibility.
You can have a python shell open, and call your own functions (generally one liners) to display exactly what you need.

I need something more down to earth that I can introduce to my students without a fuzz. I need them to concentrate on the math, not on a pseudo-programming language. That said, I did like what I saw in Sage. Even though that VirtualBox requirement for a windows installation seems overkill, I might get Sage for my own personal use. But as far as a class is concerned, I can't possibly use it in the room; It's too demanding and the semester is short enough already.

O_o

With all these people I know of lately starting to teach my fear of the next generation is starting to slip.

I wonder if the wide world, not naming names, will ever stop dumping crap into my field?

Anyway, good luck with the teaching, Mario.

*shrug*

I don't have anything to say about graph plotting software.

Soma

I do not if this can help.

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Originally Posted by phantomotap

With all these people I know of lately starting to teach my fear of the next generation is starting to slip.

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Here in Africa the situation is even worse. I have no formal qualification to teach math. And yet guess whose teaching it to university students (analysis I and II)? I'm studying the subject matter as I go. Spivak and Apostol texts have been of tremendous help. But all this because college lacks good teachers and university lacks honest teachers, forcing many university students to have off-class tutoring so they can avoid having to pay the money the teacher asks to pass them.

I'm currently the headmaster at a private school here in Angola. The education levels of my teachers are frankly disappointing, not to mention their professionalism. There are a few exceptions, but there's a whole lot of ground that needs to be covered in this country if there's any hopes of it ever be able to educate a functioning society. I'm trying to introduce new methods across the whole primary and college syllabus in this school, based on computer-aided education, within the financial capabilities of the owner, so I can motivate both our students... and my teachers!

I'm teaching chemistry and biology to my college students tough (10th to 12th grade), as it turned out to be impossible to find anyone with a shred of an ability to do so. All good teachers had been taken away already when we started the term. These I had to teach myself too -- and I still am as we go. No matter the fun I've been having and the excellent opportunity I got to improve on my knowledge on so many disparate areas, it just makes you feel miserable the knowledge that this is no way to teach our young.

Well I ended up choosing Graph. Makes it easy to produce graphs and despite not doing antialising it exports to SVG which helps a bit getting better looking graphs for print. I'll use gnuplot for anything else.

I did like Sage a lot. But the >1GB download kills it for me at the moment. I'm paying close to 100 USD for a 4GB limited monthly connection that I already have a lot of trouble getting to the end of the month.

You can always try to compile it from source which is 319M tar (strange that they do not provide some tar.bz2 file)