Graphics - Maple Help

Graphics Improvements in Maple 15

 Maple 15 includes many improvements in plotting. These are summarized below.

Plotting Trigonometric Functions

 • Tickmarks in multiples of $\mathrm{\pi }$ are now added to plots generated by the plot and plot3d commands when $\mathrm{\pi }$ is detected in the range arguments.
 > plot3d(cos(x)*sin(y), x=-Pi..Pi, y=-Pi..Pi, 'axes'='boxed');
 • The range argument for the plot command is optional. When this is omitted, the default range is now set to -2*Pi..2*Pi instead of -10..10 when a trigonometric function is detected in the expression to be plotted.
 > plot([cos(x), sin(x)]);
 • Plots created using the Plot Builder or through the context menu also set the default range to -2*Pi..2*Pi when a trigonometric function is detected.
 • When specifying $\mathrm{\pi }$ tickmarks with the tickmarks or axis option, you can now use the name piticks instead of the spacing suboption. Similarly, if you want to remove $\mathrm{\pi }$ tickmarks that were automatically added, you can use the decimalticks value for the tickmarks option.
 > plot(sin(x), x = 0 .. 2*Pi, tickmarks = [decimalticks, piticks]);

Improved Captions for Plots and Tutors

 • Visualization plots and tutors in the Student packages have improved captions, including formatted 2-D mathematics describing the graph.
 • For an introduction to these visualizations, see the Calculus1Visualization, MultivariateCalculus, LinearAlgebraVisualization, and StudentVectorCalculus example worksheets.

Extracting Data from Plots

 • The new getdata command in the plottools package retrieves data from a 2-D or 3-D plot and returns it in the form of a Matrix or Array, along with the ranges of the data. More details are available in the plottools[getdata] help page.
 > plottools[getdata](plot([sin(x), x^2-2*x], x = -2 .. 2));
  (1)

More Control over Plots of 3-D Solutions to a System of DEs

 • The DEplot3d command in the DEtools package has been enhanced, with the addition of 3-d field arrows, and the ability to animate either curves, arrows, or both.
 Example of a command to plot field arrows:
 > with(DEtools,DEplot3d):
 > DEplot3d({diff(x(t),t)=y(t),diff(y(t),t)=-sin(x(t))},[x(t),y(t)],t=0..10, [[x(0)=0,y(0)=.5],[x(0)=0,y(0)=1],[x(0)=0,y(0)=1.8],[x(0)=-2*Pi,y(0)=1], [x(0)=2*Pi,y(0)=.5],[x(0)=-2*Pi,y(0)=2.1],[x(0)=2*Pi,y(0)=-2.1]], orientation=[-5,85],linecolor=sin(t)-t,arrows=cheap);
 Same system animating the solution curves:
 > DEplot3d({diff(x(t),t)=y(t),diff(y(t),t)=-sin(x(t))},[x(t),y(t)],t=0..10, [[x(0)=0,y(0)=.5],[x(0)=0,y(0)=1],[x(0)=0,y(0)=1.8],[x(0)=-2*Pi,y(0)=1], [x(0)=2*Pi,y(0)=.5],[x(0)=-2*Pi,y(0)=2.1],[x(0)=2*Pi,y(0)=-2.1]], orientation=[-5,85],linecolor=sin(t)-t,animate=true);