### Tutorial on Numerical Computationdoing maths with computer

In this last part of the tutorial, we are going to discuss more about plotting in octave. This part is optional. But when you see the pictures, I hope you’ll feel compelled to try it :)

## Multiple plots

What if we are asked to plot many functions on the same panel? For example, someone has informed us that the carotid functions $f_n(x)=\cos(n x \arccos(x))$ are really interesting, most of all in the region $n = [-0.59,-0.56]$, and that a very beautiful plot comes out if you show them all together…

We can do a loop in order to show them all, and use the hold on command so that the images are combined:

## Exercises

• Plot one hundred circles with random positions within in the unit square, and random radii in [0,0.05]. You should get something like this:

## Surface plots

If a function depends on two variables, $x$ and $y$, we can depict them as a surface. For example, $f(x,y)=x^2+y^2$. How does it look like? In this case, I prefer to just give the recipe, and explain a bit afterwards

The figure that you have obtained is 3D and it can rotate, if you click and drag with the mouse. You can get this:

## Exercises

• For each point of the plane $(x,y)$ define its distance to the center, $r=\sqrt{x^2+y^2}$. Now plot $f(x,y)=\sin(r)/r$. The result should be something like this:

## Animations

Sometimes our curves will change in time, and it’s very cool to show them evolve in real time. Try the next code:

The trick here is that the command plot can return a handle, and using that handle we can update the plot in real time. We perform a loop for all values of b (decreasing), update the values of the y and insert them into the plot using set(h,"YData",y). The pause prevents everything from happening too fast.

A last little piece of code, to show how beautiful mathematical plots can get:

You may be wondering how did I convert the pretty Octave shows into animated gifs one can use in a webpage… Well, you’re going to be scientists / engineers, find it out! :)