Free good graphing software?

[onemind]

Hi,

 

I've been searching google for good ath software but i cant find anything decent.

What i'm after is a program that can graph equation simply with trig functions ect.

Any links?

 

Thanks

[Ducky Havok]

I just did a really quick yahoo search and found this right away...

 

http://www.frontiernet.net/~imaging/graph_my_equation.html

[Dave]

I've not really found one that's free and that I like. The old Macs used to ship with something called Graphing Calculator, which was a great little program. However, beyond this, it gets a bit tricky.

 

Most of the time, I use gnuplot because I plot a lot of data sets from things like numerical ODEs. However, you can plot ordinary graphs fairly easily. Beware; it's not particularly user-friendly, and you can sometimes spend ages trying to get it to plot something.

 

Also, the classic octave+gnuplot combination (kindof like matlab, only under the GNU) is rather good for most plotting needs.

[BigMoosie]

I made one, quite a basic one, but it works online and you dont have to download anything (written in javascript): http://www.gooba.rollingtank.com/2d.htm

 

The only problem is that you must use Internet Explorer and you must write equations in javaScript like:

 

y = Math.sin(x);

// sine

 

y = Math.atan(x);

// inverse tan (arctan)

 

y = Math.pow(2,x);

// exponential

 

Operations:

x + 2

x - 2

x / 2

x * 2

 

Brackets must include * even when one seems obvious like:

 

(x+1)*(x-1)

 

edit: just saw the other one ^, mines a piece of crap compared, but the language I chose was definantly not the one for the job

[MechE]

If you're running win XP, do a search on Microsoft's website for PowerToy Calc. I ran into it by accident one day and it's pretty nice, does math for you as well as graph in 2d.

 

And it's free

[bmaxwell]

break down and get a student version of mathmatica

[onemind]

Thanks all

 

I've tried out quite a few. Incase anyone is interested, i found a pretty user friendly one called Graph: http://www.padowan.dk/graph/

 

Cheers

[bmaxwell]

Thats a nice Program from source forge. http://www.padowan.dk/graph/ and the source code is a available to download as well. http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/graph/GraphSource-3.3.1.zip?download

 

hope that works. you need C++ to work with the source code. Source Forge has some GNU license stuff you can download. I think there is a Good IDE for C++ on there as well.

[doomtiki]

break down and get a student version of mathmatica

 

In the event one would want a fancy CAS that can do 3d graphing and symbolic manipulation, Maxima is a good free alternative to Mathematica. There is also a nice graphical frontend called WxMaxima .

[bmaxwell]

The TI website has a great program called Derive on it. It is the most user friendly of all of the programs talked about in this thread. I am taking Multivariable calc this quarter and the instructor was using it to show us surfaces that we were sketching by hand. I downloaded the trial and have been using it to graph the surfaces I sketch for my homework problems.

After 30 days you need to cough up $99 for the academic version.

 

Also it works with the TI-92 calc and the 89. I have not played with these features yet.