What software can plot non-trivial functions?
December 4, 2009 2:22 AM   Subscribe

What software can I use to plot functions? Excel and matplotlib seem to only plot data points. gnuplot plots simple functions but not the generalized harmonic number, which I need, e.g., H(n,1.5). It would be great if this software can also plot inverse functions, e.g. x=f(y) on a normal x-y axis to overlay on a normal y=f(x) plot.
posted by tasty to Technology (13 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm not a math whiz, but SAGE might be worth a shot?
posted by tmcw at 2:36 AM on December 4, 2009


This is also the kind of thing that R probably does.
posted by tmcw at 3:14 AM on December 4, 2009


Mathematica
posted by dfriedman at 3:15 AM on December 4, 2009


Have you tried wolfram alpha? Will probably cost you less than mathematica..
posted by 3mendo at 3:16 AM on December 4, 2009


Actually 3mendo is right. Wolfram Alpha should do this.
posted by dfriedman at 3:19 AM on December 4, 2009


Octave?
posted by Electric Dragon at 3:59 AM on December 4, 2009


Sage, R, and SciLab are all free OSS packages that should handle this, but check out appropriate software package's used by Sage, as their native documentation might proove more relevant.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:05 AM on December 4, 2009


If you use or have access to a Mac, Grapher might meet your needs. It's included with OS X.
posted by telegraph at 4:43 AM on December 4, 2009


Wolfram Alpha's output
i wish i had a clue what this is, but it sure look pretty.
posted by 3mendo at 4:58 AM on December 4, 2009 [2 favorites]


The 'curve' function in R plots functions (I discovered it this morning).
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 6:09 AM on December 4, 2009


Matlab does plot (essentially continuous) functions: e.g., ezplot.
posted by sentient at 11:44 AM on December 4, 2009


(oops, thought you mentioned Matlab.)
posted by sentient at 11:46 AM on December 4, 2009


Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I was looking into graphing applications and it did not occur to me to try the math applications.

I was able to do this using Mathematica. Wolfram Alpha seemed good but I could not get it to plot 2 expressions on one chart.
posted by tasty at 7:38 PM on December 5, 2009


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