I tried the same plot in WinXP, and it definitely does not work
(in maxima 5.9.2). There is a divide by zero error which appears. It
seems that the 3d matrix operations are screwing up. I will post a bug
report.
P.S. I also tried f(u,v):= 2 + .00000000001*x. It graphs, but the
default scale is terrible.
-sen
On Thu, 3 Aug 2006, John Guenther wrote:
> I teach geometry, calculus, and differential equations to high school
> students.
> One area that many students have difficulty with is visualizing 3D
> objects.
> I have used mathematica successfully in these classes.
> It is really useful to be able to graph intersecting planes, planes that
> are tangent to spheres, surfaces of revolution, etc.
> Being able to plot in 3D is incredibly helpful in understanding partial
> derivatives.
> To be able to plot not only functions of z but parametric plots and
> implicit plots in mathematica make it incredible versatile but its very
> expensive.
>
> The problems I have been having with maxima; its apparent limitations.
> Not being able to plot z as a constant function (at least under windows
> XP since apparenly you can under linux) and particularly not being able
> to plot several surfaces in one plot make maxima pretty useless in this
> regard.
>
> For many of you perhaps using Maxima as a tool for plotting is not
> important, but I hope I can encourage those of you who are developing it
> to enhance its capabilities in this area as a boon to mathematical
> education. To have a free program that could do these things would be
> fantasticly useful to high school teachers.
>
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Sheldon E. Newhouse | e-mail: sen1 at math.msu.edu |
| Mathematics Department | |
| Michigan State University | telephone: 517-355-9684 |
| E. Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA | FAX: 517-432-1562 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------