A Survey of User Interfaces for Computer Algebra Systems

AbstractThis paper surveys work within the Computer Algebra community (and elsewhere) directed towards improving user interfaces for scientific computation during the period 1963–1994. It is intended to be useful to two groups of people: those who wish to know what work has been done and those who would like to do work in the field. It contains an extensive bibliography to assist readers in exploring the field in more depth. Work related to improving human interaction with computer algebra systems is the main focus of the paper. However, the paper includes additional materials on some closely related issues such as structured document editing, graphics, and communication protocols

From Honest to Intelligent Plotting

Adaptive and honest plotting are two techniques to improve the quality of curve and surface visualization packages. Beyond honest plotting, we investigate a number of alternative techniques in order to improve correctness and completeness of 2D and 3D plotting, increase efficiency, and achieve better usability. We refer to these techniques as intelligent plotting as most of them transparently take advantage of the numerical and/or symbolic capabilities available from some mathematical engine in order to provide better and faster graphical displays. We implemented these techniques inside two very different packages: the Graphing Calculator and IZIC which we used as testbeds for our experiments. 1 Introduction Most general purpose Computer Algebra (CA) systems include more and more sophisticated 2D and 3D plotting facilities. Axiom, Macsyma, Maple, and Mathematica, for example, all include options to change graphical parameters such as colors, labels, viewpoint, or painting style. In a..