Re: [seul-edu] graphing software

[lp <prevettl@cochise.cc.az.us>]

Dave Prentice wrote:
> 
> To all,
>     A few weeks ago I asked about graphing software that might be
> useful in a high school Algebra 1 class. If anybody else is ever
> looking for the same thing, one of the answers is right under our
> noses.
>     After much experimentation, I finally figured out how to use
> gnuplot. The documentation is horrible for an inexperienced user, but
> the capabilities are excellent. Once you figure how to set the
> scaling, grid, and range, it's a great free program to graph multiple
> simultaneous equations.
> 
> Dave Prentice
> prentice@instruction.com
> 

Gnuplot is great, and you're right about the documentation. I put
some notes about Gnuplot here:

  http://math.cochise.cc.az.us/mtg/basic_gnuplot.html

It contains some simple (I hope) instructions on plots,
how to get plots into web pages and latex documents, and
also how to do linear and quadratic regression with Gnuplot.

There are some tutorials here:

  http://www.duke.edu/~hpgavin/gnuplot.html

  http://www.cs.uni.edu/Help/gnuplot/

There are some GUIs for gnuplot, but I've never used them.
You can read about them here:

  http://www.gnuplot.org

Also, "geg" is nice standalone plotting utility that is very 
easy to use. It doesn't have all the features of Gnuplot, but 
sometimes the lack of features is good because it simplifies things.
http://www.infolaunch.com/~daveb/


L. Prevett
Mathematics Instructor
Cochise Collge, Sierra Vista, AZ, US
prevettl@cochise.cc.az.us