Mathematics graphing software

Sometimes, I find that I can't visualise what a graph looks like, and I can't work out all the details in order to be able to sketch it. So I use my computer to draw a graph. The software I use is Autograph, which is excellent. However, the individual price tag of £69.33 is quite pricey, and probably too much for some people. They do have a 30 day trial, so you might want to download it and see what you think before you make up your mind.

Obviously, if you have a graphical calculator, you can use that to draw graphs. However, a graphical calculator is almost certain to be slower than your computer, and will have a smaller screen with a lower resolution.

For those of you without the cash to buy autograph, I'm going to take a look at some free graphing software. All the software has been tested on Windows XP, but may also run in other operating systems.

gnuplot 4.23

gnuplot is open source, and can be freely distributed. It is portable, meaning that it doesn't have to be installed before you use, so you could run it off a flash drive. According to the FAQ, it seems that it will run on pretty much any operating system that you're likely to be running.

My download was 3.71 MB, which should go quite fast even for those on dial-up connections.

It comes with a GUI, but I still ended up having to type in part of the command. It took digging through the help files before I could even manage to plot the graph of y=cos(x)

The last stable version (4.23) was released on 8 March 2008, and there is a beta version, so it is clearly still being actively developed.

Verdict: The software is certainly capable of drawing graphs, but it is not at all user friendly. Not recommended unless you have some form of command line or programming experience, although for a few legacy systems, this may be your only choice.

GraphCalc

GraphCalc seems to have been mostly developed for windows, but it does have a linux version.

The executable file I downloaded was only 841 KB, small enough to fit on a floppy disk. This software is also open source and can be freely distributed, however it needs to be installed before use.

It seems to support a reasonable range of functions, such as trigonometric, exponential, logarithmic, and hyperbolic functions. Entering an equation was really easy, and it appears to support graphing up to 10 equations at once. As well as the Euclidean coordinates (That's cartesian coordinates, with y defined in terms of x), it also supports polar coordinates, and parametric equations. There's also an option for 3D graphs, which I haven't explored much.

You can draw tangents to graphs, and the find the area under graphs, which is very useful when you're checking to see if your calculus is correct.

GraphCalc was last updated in November 2003, so unfortunately doesn't appear to be in active development any more.

Verdict: A simple, easy to use program, which should be able to plot most graphs that you'll come across in GCSE or A-level.

Neither of these programs is as good as autograph, but they are both probably capable of doing a good job of drawing the graphs you're likely to come across.

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