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Re: Visualising multi-variable higher-degree polynomials?



Hello,

On Sat, 06 Jun 2009, Christopher Olah wrote:
> I was wondering whether anyone knew of a FOSS tool for visualising
> multi-variable higher-degree polynomials (eg. y^4 + y^3 = x^2 +3x + z
> + z^8)?

Such plots are (in general) a (rather difficult) problem in real
algebraic geometry so it is unlikely that you will have a generic
algorithm that "Just Works"!

> povray has poly object
> (http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/3.6.1/74/), but it is also
> problematic: It can only handle whole exponents and since povray
> generates an image from a specific point of view, is also tedious to
> use.

However, "povray" is probably your best bet.

Meanwhile, the specific problem that you have is easier since it is a
quadratic in x of the form (x+3/2)^2 = f(y,z) which should be easy to
plot as it is traced by parabolas.

Regards,

Kapil.
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