TheCurves is application software written in Java. It plots a parameterized family of curves based on algebraic formulas specified by the user.
I see TheCurves primarily as an educational tool, although it could be of some use to researchers. Here’s a screen-shot:
To see it running as an applet, point a Java-enabled web browser at TheCurves in a web page. There are also examples of multiple TheCurves instances in a page. as well as a page that animates TheCurves.
The project has now been released as GPL open-source software on SourceForge. From TheCurves’ project pages, you can download TheCurves and complain to me about it if you like.
If you don’t know the meaning of the term “parameterized family of curves”, and don’t mean to find out, you may find this application amusing, but it will be of little use to you.
When the program is run as an applet in a web page, the plot parameters and formulas are configurable by HTML and dynamically scriptable, so that the applet can be initialized to present a specific plot when the page is opened, or to change plots when the user clicks on a control in the web page.
Some initial notes on how to use TheCurves may be found in the document Using TheCurves.
The program uses the 3plus4 expression parser by Stefan Matthias Aust, which is explicitly made available for inclusion with in GPL’ed projects. See 3plus4 Java.