Using regularly spaced points can produce "beats" so that the plot from a to
b looks entirely different from the plot from a to (b+epsilon). That's not
a happy situation either.
Plotting using interval arithmetic is more nearly foolproof, but has its own
problems, like requiring an interval arithmetic system, currently missing
from Maxima.
RJF
> -----Original Message-----
> From: maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu
> [mailto:maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu] On Behalf Of Raymond Toy
> Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 7:41 AM
> To: Robert Dodier
> Cc: Maxima List
> Subject: Re: [Maxima] Plotting bug?
>
> Robert Dodier wrote:
> > On 11/29/07, Rob Frohne <frohro at wallawalla.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > To Maxima developers -- maybe the plotting heuristic should involve
> > evaluating at some random points? Not just multiples of (b - a)/2^n.
> >
> >
> >
> It's actually (b-a)/nticks/2^n, more or less. But you
> probably knew that.
>
> Do you really mean "random" points? I wouldn't be very happy
> if every
> time I plotted a function it looked slightly different
> because different
> random points were selected. The default value of nticks
> could be a bit
> too small, and we could make it larger. It used to be 100 or so.
>
> Ray
>
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