11.2: Presenting Results with Visualization, an overview
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11.2.1 Plotting Functions and other Curves
Mathematically speaking, we often this about functions. However, functions can take on many forms including:
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functions of one variable–plots of this are often function plots with the independent variable on the horizontal axis and function values on the vertical. We saw such function graphs above.
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parametric functions (vector functions in 2D). These are functions in which the x and y variables depend on a parameter (often t or θ). We will see how to plot this in section XXX
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implicit curves .An implicit curve is the set of points (x,y) in which f(x,y)=0.The classic example is the circle
x2+y2=1
which can be written in the form f (x, y) = 0 by subtracting 1 from both sides. -
functions of two variables. These often have the form:
z=f(x,y)
and that the two independent variables are x and y and the third variable is the height of the function. There are at least three standard ways of representing such a function:-
surface plots as in section 11.3.3 which is a 3D rendering of the surface
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contour plots (section ??), which generates a curve in the plane for a given
number of heights.
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heatmaps (section??) which gives a color representing the height of the function.
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Vector Functions in 3D are often represented as parametric functions of the form:
⟨x(t),y(t),z(t)⟩
where each function gives the x,y or z coordinate at a time t. Examples of this are in section XXX
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