The 3D Plots tab

Advanced Edition

3D Plots, and you can turn the picture round

Surfaces z = f(x, y) are the first row kind, colored by height with a scale beside them. Parametric surfaces take three expressions in u and v. A sphere or a torus is drawn this way. A solid of revolution spins y = f(x) about the axis, so the volume a calculus class integrates can be seen on screen. A space curve takes a triple in t, e.g., [cos(t), sin(t), t/4] is a helix. Implicit surfaces are written as an expression that equals zero on the surface, e.g., x^2 + y^2 + z^2 - 1 is the unit sphere. This is how you draw a shape that cannot be solved for z. Finally, plain data points in space can be plotted.

Two kinds are there for chemistry and physics. An orbital row takes a wavefunction, e.g., z*exp(-r/2) is a 2p orbital (in this row, r is the distance from the origin). It draws the surface inside which the electron spends most of its time, in one color where the wavefunction is positive and in another where it is negative, since bonding depends on the sign. Tick Cut away and choose the Front preset to see the nodes inside a 2s or a 3p orbital as the textbook draws them, or draw the same orbital as an electron cloud. The Examples menu carries the hydrogen orbitals from 1s to 4f. A three-dimensional vector field [P, Q, R] fills the box with arrows, and a point typed at the end of the row is followed both ways along the field line through it. Stream tubes draw those field lines as solid tubes, seeded around the center for you. This is the picture of a magnet found in every physics textbook, and the Examples menu has a dipole, a bar magnet, a straight wire, two wires, and Earth's tilted field.

Drag the picture to turn it, scroll to zoom, or use the Left / Right / Up / Down buttons and the arrow keys. There are camera presets, a perspective switch, and a Walk mode. A surface can be drawn filled, as a wireframe, as both, or smooth with no mesh showing. It can be made see-through, or drawn with its contours on the floor of the box beneath it. The picture shows the latter: the same function read as a surface and as its level curves at once. Lighting shades the whole picture, and you choose the direction of the light and the strength of the shading. Right-click saves the picture as a PNG, as everywhere else in the program.

The picture is drawn by the program itself and does not depend on the graphics card. Therefore, it works the same on a fifteen-year-old laptop in a computer lab as on a new machine.