Plotting a graph of a function f, like f(x) = e^x, with MetaPost

From: Paul Menzel <paulepanter@users.sourceforge.net>
To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
Subject: Plotting a graph of a function f, like f(x) = e^x, with MetaPost
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:45:12 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1318373112.3726.35.camel@mattotaupa> (raw)

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Dear ConTeXt folks,

I finally chose MetaPost/MetaFun [1] because of the native integration
with ConTeXt and hopefully easy font handling. I want to use that
throughout my document.

Of course I hit the first problem. Wanting to draw a “simple” function f
like f(x) = e^x, seems hard to accomplish. I guess I should stress that
MetaPost does not have a high accuracy so it might not be the best
solution [5].

There seem to be quite a lot of solutions (mostly macros) on the Web for
this problem so I am wondering if one of them is integrated in MetaFun.

Here are some of my findings.

1. Reading about the graph package by John D. Hobby [2] and which is
also included in ConTeXt [3]. Especially I liked the automatic
coordinate systems. The package seems to only be able to plot graphs
with data points saved in files. So one solution would be to manually
create data files with data points of the relevant function.

2. There is an example in the Drexel Physics Wiki [4].

3. Anthony Phan has also created some macros in his `mps` [5 (currently
not accessible)].

4. André Heck uses the macro packages `courbes` and `grille` from
Jean-Michel Sarlat to show some nice examples in his tutorial »Learning
Metapost by Doing« [6].

So what do you suggest?

Thanks,

Paul

[1] http://www.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2011/058527.html
[2] http://tug.org/docs/metapost/mpgraph.pdf
[3] http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Metapost
[4] http://einstein.drexel.edu/liki/index.php/Metapost#Graphing_Functions
[5] http://www-math.univ-poitiers.fr/~phan/downloads/metapost/statsman.pdf
[6] http://staff.science.uva.nl/~heck/Courses/mptut.pdf

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