The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Math Drawings

I need to draw some math stuff - ellipses, polyhedras, etc -

currently,I am looking at http://directory.google.com/Top/Science/Math/Combinatorics/Software/Graph_Drawing/

any recomendations?

thanks,

Prakash S
Wednesday, December 17, 2003

If you're not in too much of a hurry, Windows GDI works well, if you understand the Mapping Modes. I mostly use MM_ISOTROPIC and define my own units of measurement. Then you can draw most anything.

I suppose you're looking for a program that can just whip out some graphs without coding. Hrm... I remember using MathCad (I believe it was called) in school, though I haven't looked into it's price recently.

Dave B.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003

SciWord

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

I've had great luck programming in VML and SVG. Some folks have made some fairly complex graphs with these XML based languages, and you can download their libraries: e.g.,

http://home.t-online.de/home/lutz.tautenhahn/svgvml3d/index.html

Thing is, they are free to use and fairly simple to understand. I use them strictly for scientific graphing (not math), but this example and other mathematical examples are available on the web--google away for more.

In addition there are freeware vector-based charting applications available, such as TeeChart Office; worth looking at.

James
Wednesday, December 17, 2003

The section you linked to is for drawing network-style graphs (nodes and links / vertices and edges).

Is that what you wanted?

If so, I can recommend the top one, Graphviz, as it's very flexible and can output to almost any format.

Tom (a programmer)
Thursday, December 18, 2003

This might be worth a look: http://vpython.org/
It intended for 3-D visualization of physics problems

Tom Hathaway
Saturday, December 20, 2003