> (At the office),
<Terrific --- can I ask for what you're using Maxima?>
I actually started to say but decided it was TMI. I do a LOT of windows
graphics with GDI+ -- temperature trends, 2D representations of steel
plates moving along scaled conveyors and through furnaces, and even some
animations for the Steel Furnace Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs) I
develop.
One of the furnace temperature trends I wrote was consistently off by a
slightly varying amount, and I spent (off and on) almost four weeks
trying to trace the bug. Since I'm trying to learn Maxima for personal
reasons (it's kewl), I thought I'd expand out the affine transform
matrix and allow Maxima to solve the simultaneous equations. The affine
is calculated on the fly since it's based on a maximum and minimum
temperature to auto-scale, and those numbers can change as time
progresses. As such, I don't have numbers, and the only thing that could
have handled this that I know if, is Maxima.
The only two mistakes it found were the Real-World-to-Screen-coordinates
x-x-scaling factor and y-offsets. I recognized my mistake in simplifying
the offset value as soon as I saw maxima's results, but the change in
sign on the scaling factor had me puzzled -- especially since this would
have meant my graph was printing a mirror image, which it wasn't. Closer
examination revealed the hiding change of sign in front.
Since no one here in the office is familiar with GDI+ graphics, I
thought I'd promote the use of Maxima, but I know others won't catch
that sign, especially since they won't recognize what it means in terms
of the resultant output.
> I'm running the windows version of Maxima, and when I
> solve simultaneous equations, the result is a new equation, and the
> negative sign in front of the vinculum (division bar) is nearly
> indistinguishable. Is there a setting that to increase the spacing
> between the negative sign and the vinculum, something to make it stand
> out just a wee bit more for my aging eyes?
<Here is a little bit of simple-minded hackery to put a space after
the minus sign ... does this help?
:lisp (setf (get 'mminus 'wxxmlword) "<v>- </v>");
:lisp (setf (get 'mminus 'wxxmlsym) '("<v>- </v>"));
Just enter this in your wxMaxima session.
Note very carefully the punctuation, in particular distinguish
the single quotes from double.
Hope this helps,
Robert Dodier>
Although I was hoping for a configuration setting, I'm certain this will
do the trick. A perfect excuse for me to learn a little more about
Maxima.
Thanks for your quick response!
-rod