Hello Randy,
Welcome to Maxima! For your example:
plot2d([parametric,-5/2+sqrt(37/2)*cos(t),-5/2+sqrt(37/2)*sin(t),[t,-%pi*2,%pi*2],[nticks,80]]);
should do something. I don't know of the top of my head how to play
with the scaling to make the circle look like a circle, rather than
an ellipse. As far as I know, Maxima does not have an implicit plot
facility. I don't expect that there will be any major improvement of
the plotting facility for the next release of Maxima - there are
some other priorities.
I hope this helps.
Milan
Randy Keeling [11/06/05 17:50 -0400]:
> Hello,
>
> I am a long time user of Maple make the switch to Maxima. I am trying
> something very trivial but I can't seem to get it to work.
>
> My students are reviewing elementary graphing techniques and I wanted to
> show them a few computer based examples. One example is plotting a circle. I
> define my equation in Maxima (e.g. x^2 + y^2 + 5*x + 5*y - 6 = 0;) and have
> tried a dozen different ways to use plot2d to get my graph. Every way either
> gives an error, or it just sets there for few minutes and then returns an
> empty output prompt. I can plot simple functions, but not an 'equation'. Any
> ideas?
>
> Thanks for helping a new user out.
>
> Randy Keeling
>
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