The Surface Plotter version 1.30b2 


Surface Plotter helps you to visualize mathematical surfaces defined by an explicit
two-variable function (e.q:  z = f(x,y)). Since version 1.20, Surface Plotter can plot
up to two functions simulataneously. You can interactively rotate, tilt, scale or move the
surface once it was calculated and plotted. Since version 1.30b1, Surface Plotter can
also create contour plot and density plot of the given function. 
Surface Plotter was written in Java programming language, and was designed to be both 
an applet and an application.

Supported platforms
-------------------
Surface Plotter supports all platforms that support Java. 
You need a Java-enabled web browser or appletviewer of Java Development Kit (JDK). 
If you have JDK, you can run Surface Plotter as an application using a java interpreter 
included in the JDK. 

This version of Surface Plotter was compiled using JDK version 1.1 and 1.0.2. 
For the present time, the JDK is available for SPARC Solaris, x86 Solaris, Windows NT, 
Windows 95, Mac, Linux, and some UNIX. 

Note: To enable all the capabilities of Surface Plotter, I recommend you to run 
      Surface Plotter as an application with JDK 1.1
      
Installation Instruction
------------------------
Surface Plotter comes in two compression formats: tar+gzip and zip. All these files contain
the same set of files, so choose only one of it. (UNIX users might prefer gzip format,
while Macintosh and Windows users might prefer zip format)
If you choose gzip format, first copy the distribution file to the directory under which
you want to install the Surface Plotter and change directory to the directory.
Then type the following command:

           gunzip -c SurfacePlotter130b2.tar.gz | tar xvf -

                                 or

                tar zxvf SurfacePlotter130b2.tar.gz

If you are Windows or Macintosh user, choose the zip compressed file and uncompressed it an
unzip program. (It is not a self-extract zip file). For Windows 95 users, make sure that your 
unzip program supports long file name format.
The Surface Plotter will be installed under "surface" directory of current or selected directory.
This "surface" directory is the Surface Plotter directory.           
           
Running Surface Plotter
-----------------------
The Surface Plotter directory contains Surface Plotter doc directory, help directory, classes 
directory, and sources directory. 
To run the Surface Plotter as an applet, first run your web browser (Must be Java enabled) and 
load a file named "index.html". The web browser will automatically load the Surface Plotter 
for you. To run the Surface Plotter as an application, you need a JDK version beta1 or later 
(I suggest the latest version) installed on your machine. The easiest way is change the 
current working directory to the "classes" directory (under installation directory) and 
execute this command:

     java SurfacePlotter
     
This will load the SurfacePlotter class and execute it. If you got an error message that 
tells you that a particular class could not be found, make sure that your CLASSPATH contains 
the Surface Plotter "classes" directory or current working directory. For example:

     CLASSPATH=.;C:\JAVA\LIB
     
tells Java interpreter to search for classes in current working directory and C:\JAVA\LIB 
directory.
If you have JDK installed on your machine, and you don't have Java enabled Web browser, you 
can run Surface Plotter using the appletviewer. Go to the directory where index.html is 
installed (Surface Plotter directory) and execute this command:

     appletviewer index.html


Where to find more information
------------------------------
Surface Plotter is available online at:

http://tech.yanto-flora-net/surface.php

Please visit the web page to get information about new version of Surface Plotter.


About the author
----------------
Surface Plotter was written by: 

       Yanto Suryono 

       e-mail:  yanto_suryono@hotmail.com