Maple Plotting Guide 

Introduction 

Maple provides many varied forms of plots for you to use. This guide is designed to help you find the correct plot, and find the information you need to quickly and easily visualize your function, expression, or data. 

2-D Plots	3-D Plots	Specialized Plots	More Information
2-D Line Plots	3-D Line and Point Plots	Statistical and Financial Plots	Plot Options
2-D Filled Plots	3-D Filled Plots	Dynamic Systems	Interactive Plotting
2-D Vector and Grid Plots	3-D Vector and Grid Plots	Text	Combining Plots
2-D Point Plots	3-D Mathematical Concepts Calculated		Animating Plots
Bar Plots			Transforming Plots
2-D Mathematical Concepts Calculated			Exporting Plots
			See Also

Click on the name or picture of each plot to see the corresponding Maple help page. The commands to create the plots are in the examples section of each help page. 

2-D Plots 

2-D Line Plots	2-D Point Plots
2-D Filled Plots	Bar Plots
2-D Vector and Grid Plots	2-D Mathematical Concepts Calculated

2-D Line Plots 

Apply a gradient color scheme	Compare plots	Complex plot	Cumulative sum chart	Draw geometric object	Draw graph or network
Dual axis plot	Frequency plot	Infinity plot	Line chart	Logarithmic plot	Parametric plot
Plot	Plot a discontinuous function	Plot implicit function	Plot in different coordinate system	Plot kernel density	Plot list of values
Plot real curve	Plot straight line	Polar plot

2-D Plots 

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2-D Filled Plots 

Area chart	Contour plot	Density plot	Pie chart	Plot inequality	Plot polygon
polygonbyname	Shade the area between two curves	Venn diagram	Violin plot	Voronoi Diagram

2-D Plots 

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2-D Vector and Grid Plots 

Conformal plot	Plot direction field	Plot field	Plot gradient field	Plot spatial curve	Plot vector
Plot vector field	Show coordinate system	Space curve

2-D Plots 

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2-D Point Plots 

Agglomerated plot	Bubble plot	Color points by associated values	Plot quantile	Plot sparse matrix	Point Plot
Scatter plot	Sunflower plot	Symmetry plot

2-D Plots 

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Bar Plots 

Bar chart	Box plot	Column graph	Error plot	Histogram	Pareto

2-D Plots 

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2-D Mathematical Concepts Calculated 

FlowLine	Flux	Function chart	Line Integral	Mean value theorem	Newton's method
Path of a stochastic process	Plot Antiderivative	Plot branches	Plot DE solution cases	Plot Derivative	Plot eigenvectors
Plot function composition	Plot least squares fit	Plot linear system	Plot linear transform	Plot Newton polygon	Plot phase portrait
Plot projection	Plot Riemann sum	Plot secant line	Plot solution of ODE	Plot Taylor Approximation	Plot vector sum
Plot y=x reflection	Poincare surface of section	Point interpolation	Probability plot	Process control chart	Profile of likelihood
Rolle's theorem	Root locus plot	Tree plot	Venn diagram	Wavelet plot

2-D Plots 

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3-D Plots 

3-D Line and Point Plots	3-D Vector and Grid Plots
3-D Filled Plots	3-D Mathematical Concepts Calculated

3-D Line and Point Plots 

Agglomerated plot	Draw graph or network	Plot 3-D point	Plot knot	Space curve

3-D Plots 

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3-D Filled Plots 

3-D Plot	Apply gradient color scheme to surface	Area chart	Color surface by associated values	Color surface by coordinate values	Compare plots
Complex plot	Contour plot	Draw geometric object	Implicit plot	Plot intersection	Plot matrix values
Plot polyhedra	Plot tube	Shade the volume between two surfaces	Surface plot of data

3-D Plots 

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3-D Vector and Grid Plots 

3-D Plot in different coordinate system	Conformal plot	Plot field	Plot gradient field	Plot spatial curve	Plot surface
Plot vector	Show 3-D coordinate system

3-D Plots 

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3-D Mathematical Concepts Calculated 

Directional derivative	Flow line	Flux	Gradient	Lagrange multipliers	Line Integral
Normal	Plot cross product	Plot cross section	Plot DE solution	Plot eigenvectors	Plot least squares fit
Plot linear system	Plot linear transform	Plot ODE solution	Plot PDE solution	Plot projection	Plot Riemann sum
Plot surface/volume of revolution	Plot Taylor approximation	Plot vector sum	Poincare surface of section	Radius of curvature	Tangent vector
TNB frame	Vector-defined plane

3-D Plots 

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Specialized Plots 

Cayley Graph	Cayley Table	Commuting Graph	Compare plots in an Array	Display data on a world map	Display different world map projections
Draw Graph	Draw graph automorphisms	Draw Subgroup Lattice	LSPeriodogram	Periodogram	Plot Polyhedral Set
Pressure-enthalpy Diagram	Psychrometric Chart	SignalPlot	Spectrogram	Temperature-Entropy Chart

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Statistical and Financial Plots  

3-D Agglomerated plot	3-D Area chart	Agglomerated plot	Area chart	Bar chart	Biplot
Box plot	Bubble plot	Column graph	Correlogram	Cumulative sum chart	Data plot
Error plot	Frequency plot	Heat map	Histogram	Line chart	Pareto
Path of a stochastic process	Pie chart	Plot kernel density	Plot point	Plot quantile	Probability plot
Profile of likelihood	Scatter plot	Scatter plot 3-D	Scree plot	Seasonal subseries plot	Sunflower plot
Surface plot of data	Symmetry plot	Time series plot	Tree map	Tree plot	Venn diagram
Violin plot	Weibull plot

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Dynamic Systems 

Bode plot	Nichols Plot	Nyquist plot	Plot discrete points	Plot impulse response	Plot magnitude
Plot phase	Plot response	Plot response in 3-D	Plot zeros and poles	Root-contour plot	Root-locus plot

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Text 

3-D Text plot	Text plot

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Plot Options 

There are many options that can be applied to the plot command, and other plots accept most of those options. They include grid display options (gridlines, axes, captions, and more), plot generation options (adaptive point sampling and discontinuity detection), and plot display options (colors, line and fill styles, transparency, etc).  See plot options for a complete list.  Each plot page indicates which of the options it accepts. 

Most of the options that can be applied to a plot command can also be applied interactively to an existing plot, by using the plot context menus. 

The plottools package provides commands to generate basic graphical objects and alter existing plot structures. Objects include geometric shapes, arrows, and points, and can be displayed either in existing plots or on separate axes. Transformations involve rotation, translation, and scaling of any type of plot. Also available is textplot, for adding text or 2-D math to an existing plot (or textplot3d for 3-D plots). You can also add text, 2-D math, various shapes, or free form drawing to a 2-D plot using a set of drawing tools. 

Typesetting for 3-D plots provides the ability to use typeset mathematics and text in titles, captions, axis labels and text objects, as well as the ability to edit them in place. For more information, see the plot/typesetting help page. 

The plot and plot3d commands have been updated to recognize units in the function and range arguments, for both the expression-form and operator-form of the calling sequences. More information about this feature is available on the plot/units help page. 

You can set most plot options for an entire Maple session, using the setoptions command. The options apply only to the worksheet in which they are set, until either it is closed, or restart is called. 

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Interactive Plotting 

Many plots can be generated using the interactive Plot Builder.  It is an interface with easy-to-use input fields and drop-down menus, allowing you to specify the options available for the plot you choose. When you use the Plot Builder on an expression to be plotted, it provides a choice of plot types which are compatible with that expression. Controls for plot options are grouped together by relevance and change dynamically in the panel. 

For detailed instructions on using the plot builder interface, see Using the Interactive Plot Builder. For performing many tasks with plots, see the links on the plotting overview page. 

The interactiveparams command can be useful for quickly viewing changes to certain variables in an expression. The expression can be manipulated and the plot previewed with a Maplet, then output as either a plot or a plotting command. 

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Combining Plots 

You can use the display command to display multiple plots on the same axes. This command accepts multiple plots of different structures, as long as they are all of the same dimension, and allows any of the plot options to be defined for all of the plots being displayed. Alternately, you can enter an array of plots into the display command, and plots can be displayed side-by-side. This command can also be used to animate one or more plots. 

With most of the commands above, you can enter a set of functions or expressions in place of a single function or expression. Alternately, you can use the multiple command. These methods display multiple plots on the same axes, but they are all of the same type. 

An easy way to add functions or expressions to an existing plot is to select and drag the input or output of an expression or function definition onto the plot. The settings that are applied to the original plot are also applied to the new function, but if you use default settings, the grid automatically adjusts to display all expressions fully. See drag and drop for details. 

The Plot Builder also builds plots of multiple expressions, providing an easy way to modify the options on individual plots or global options. 

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Animating Plots 

Many of the plots above can be animated on a parameter, which is defined when the animate command is called. This provides a method for examining the effects of a single parameter on the plot. The same command can be used to show a curve traced in time. See the display help page for instructions on how to animate several plots and display an animation with a background plot. 

The viewpoint animation option allows you to create a "fly-through" animation by varying the viewpoint through a 3-D plot. In a fly-through animation, the camera that projects the 3-D plot moves in all directions above, below, and around the plot surface, as if the camera were flying through the plot. For more information, see the plot3d/viewpoint help page. 

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Transforming Plots 

Maple provides many methods for altering existing plots. The easiest method is to use the plot context menus. There, you can change many of the plot options that can be specified when first generating the plot by using an interface that allows you to enter only the options accepted by that plot. See plotinterface for more details on manipulating both two-dimensional and three-dimensional plots. 

You can also specify modifications and transformations to plot structures and objects using plottools. For instance, to exchange the coordinate axes of a plot or to apply a custom mapping to a plot, use plottools[transform]. 

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Exporting Plots 

The default method of output for all plots is to display the plot inline within the Maple Worksheet. However, you can specify the output as a jpeg, gif, or postscript file, a Maplet, a new Maple Worksheet, or one of several other formats. To set the output method in a worksheet, use the plotsetup command. 

You can also export a plot from the worksheet once it has been drawn, by using the plot context menus. See export a plot for more information. 

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See Also 

• plotinterface

 

• plot types

 

• User Manual: Chapter 6