Have you ever come home, then realize you left your graphing calculator at school? Maybe you’ve felt too lazy to bring your calculator home because of their greater-than-usual weight as graphing calculators. Graphmatica is a “trial” software product that can do most of the things graphing calculators can do, with a few added extras.
Download the “trial” download from Graphmatica’s website (Windows only) to test it out. Note: this download doesn’t seem to expire, so please donate to Graphmatica out of the kindness of your heart.
Upon opening Graphmatica, you’ll see something like this:
Graphmatica’s default color scheme is set to black; to make it normal like my color scheme, go to Options>Graph Paper>Color and set the color scheme to something other than “Black.” Graphmatica has the ability to graph in the Cartesian plane and the Polar plane. You can easily switch between what the graph paper shows by switching a few options. Below is a screenshot of two different functions from different planes:
Simply type and press enter into the bar under the menu bar to display a function. Notice how I used “theta” for theta in the polar graph. It is possible to capture images of these functions and then print them out. To modify or delete functions, right click on the graph of a function, and choose an option from the pop up menu. Graphmatica can also draw the derivative of a function, and integrate them, through the “Calculus” menu.
Graphmatica supports a wide variety of functions, most of which I have never heard of and are probably beyond high school mathematics. Below is the Operator table from the Help menu:
Now, for Graphmatica’s rating:
Graphmatica
Performance: 5
Features: 5
Ease of Use: 4.5
Value for Money: 4
Appearance: 5
Final Rating: 4.725
The bottom line is that Graphmatica is a handy little tool to use at home along with a graphing calculator. Graphmatica is generally easy to use, and very easy to get along with after toying around with the menus. We would definitely recommend Graphmatica as a supplement to precalculus courses.
You Might Also Be Interested In:
Of course, if you have nothing complicated to graph, you can go on WolframAlpha and do basic Cartesian stuff for free.
This seems pretty cool, but if you have a graphing calculator it more or less renders this program useless for most educational purposes. I would only use this for complicated stuff and only if I misplaced my graphing calculator and was too lazy to get a new one.
And graphing calculators have ONE THING that Graphmatica can NEVER HAVE:
Block Dude.
Hi Sproot,
Graphmatica can easily create jpegs of graphs, which gives it a plus over graphing calculators. In addition, it also renders graphs in much higher resolutions than graphing calculators, and is generally easier to use (simply type in the equation instead of punching it in). Of course, Wolfram Alpha is always a good solution.