Complex Plotting App

[jtm]

The current version fails to render transcendental functions with the default CAS settings. In particular, if both the “Exact” and “Integers” (“Change apparent integers into exact integers”) flags are set, CAS evaluation of cplxF returns Function (TYPE(…) == 8) objects instead of numbers for (Gaussian) integer inputs in cases where it cannot return an exact numerical answer, leading to invalid tests like “k>1” for k = ABS(RE(SIN(-4+3*i)))/0.01.

While this can be easily fixed by inserting evalf or approx into the CAS call, I’m curious, as an essentially clueless Prime programmer*, why you’re building and calling a CAS function in the first place, given that, in my cursory testing at least, the original non-CAS function works fine and plots slightly (~20%) faster.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention…thanks for the program! I had just finished whipping up some plots in Mathematica to explain the multivalued complex cube root to a coworker when I found it, and, while the graphical output of Mathematica on a 34" display is objectively hard to top in QVGA, this particular coworker is exactly the sort of person (like me!) who’ll nevertheless get a kick out of the fact that a $150 calculator can do this sort of thing without smoke, mirrors, or low-level programming.

* While I am a long-time HP calculator user and (non-calculator) programmer by trade, yours is the very first program I’ve read or edited on this new Prime I’ve spent all of eight hours or so fooling around with.