{"id":5190,"date":"2010-10-05T21:39:28","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T13:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/?p=5190"},"modified":"2018-01-09T17:27:38","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T09:27:38","slug":"free-math-graphing-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/mathematics\/free-math-graphing-software-5190","title":{"rendered":"Free math graphing software"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I received a delightful mail from Morgan, a <strong>95-year old<\/strong> reader. He said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p> I'm interested in a 3D  Contour Grapher. For personal use. I am 95. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I'm impressed with the number of retirees who maintain an interest in mathematics. The learners are the ones who will stay young. <\/p>\n<p>Here are two recommendations, Morgan. The first is the easiest to use and most appropriate for you. <\/p>\n<h2>1. Winplot<\/h2>\n<p>Winplot by Richard Parris (deceased) of Philips Exeter Academy has been around for many years. <\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/faculty.madisoncollege.edu\/alehnen\/winptut\/Install_Winplot.html\">Download  Winplot<\/a>  <\/p>\n<p><strong>The good: <\/strong>Winplot can plot a large range of function types, including explicit and implicit functions, vector fields, parametric equations and 3-D plots, as well as contour plots as you can see below. It comes in many language versions. <\/p>\n<p><strong>The bad: <\/strong>Windows only (no Mac or Linux versions).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2010\/10\/winplot1.gif\" alt=\"winplot\" width=\"200\" height=\"180\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2010\/10\/winplot2.gif\" alt=\"winplot\" width=\"200\" height=\"180\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2010\/10\/winplot3.gif\" alt=\"winplot graph\" width=\"200\" height=\"180\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2010\/10\/winplot4.gif\" alt=\"winplot\" width=\"200\" height=\"180\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>2. Graphics Layout Engine<\/h2>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/glx.sourceforge.net\/index.html\">Graphics Layout Engine<\/a> is an open source offering, but not for the faint-hearted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The good:  <\/strong>It produces nice clean graphs and can handle a wide range of function types, including vector fields, split functions and statistics. It can also do 3-D plots, fractals and electronic circuit diagrams. GLE can output to PDF, EPS, PS, SVG (scalable vector graphics), PNG and JPEG (for the Web). <\/p>\n<p><strong>The bad: <\/strong> It is a scripted language. That is, you need to write your script in a text editor to get your graphs - there is no simple graphical user interface. You may also  need to download other required software (like Ghostscipt, which is an interpreter for PostScript and PDF). <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2010\/10\/gle1.gif\" alt=\"GLE graph\" width=\"200\" height=\"180\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2010\/10\/gle2.gif\" alt=\"GLE graph\" width=\"200\" height=\"180\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2010\/10\/gle3.gif\" alt=\"GLE graph\" width=\"200\" height=\"180\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2010\/10\/gle4.gif\" alt=\"GLE graph\" width=\"200\" height=\"180\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Earlier articles <\/h2>\n<p>I wrote an earlier article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/learn-math\/graphs-using-free-math-software-4115\">Graphs using free math software<\/a> which you may find interesting. <\/p>\n<p>Also, GeoGebra remains a favorite. I wrote an introductory review here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/mathematics\/geogebra-math-software-a-review-2-10096\">GeoGebra math software - a review<\/a>, which contains relevant links.<\/p>\n<p>GeoGebra doesn't do contour plots (as far as I can work out), but it is a great piece of free graphing software.<\/p>\n<p>So Morgan, I hope you find all that useful. <\/p>\n<p class=\"alt\">See the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/mathematics\/free-math-graphing-software-5190#comments\" id=\"comms\">12 Comments<\/a> below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/mathematics\/free-math-graphing-software-5190\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2010\/10\/graph_th.gif\" alt=\"graph of 3D spiral object\" title=\"graph of 3D spiral object\" width=\"128\" height=\"100\" class=\"imgRt\" \/><\/a>Here is a short review of 2 free math graphing utilities, Winplot (Windows only) and Graphics Layout Engine (which is not so easy to use).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[134,127],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11314,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions\/11314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}