About:
FofZ is a Java based application which allows functions on the complex plane to be visualised in both 2D and 3D. It supports various edittable domains, animation and can produce 3D output using either it's own engine or JOGL. Currently supported 3D views are the Riemann Sphere, modulus, argument, XYU and XYV. All 3D views are rotatable with simple mouse control.
News:
11/05/06: FofZ 0.7.0.1 was released today. This is small bug fix for those with a non-US locale as their
default language. There's a new source tarball and the webstart on this site has been updated but the CVS
is still lagging behind, as I'm having problems with it at the moment. Anyways, hopefully everyone can now
enjoy FofZ. Don't forget that there's a complete rewrite coming up soon which will add a lot of new features.
Watch this space.10/03/06: Not been any updates lately. FofZ has a great deal of features and works pretty well but there are a few places that it doesn't perform as it should. As it stands I'm thinking of starting again from the ground up and am currently designing the new code structure and deciding how to translate various mathematical ideas into something computers understand. Look forward to a new and better FofZ in the future.
11/11/05: Website beginning to take shape.
09/11/05: Initial commit of FofZ to sourceforge :-). Although this is the first commit FofZ is already quite usable and reasonably stable. I have been developing it for sometime now in between studying theoretical physics at Leeds University, UK.
Screenshot
More screenshots are available on the screenshot page but here's on to get you started:
FofZ showing a 3D XYU view of the mapping f(z)=z^3.
Features
- Installable with just one click of a button. FofZ is packaged using Java webstart. This means you can click a link in your web browser and webstart will download FofZ. Don't have the JOGL library installed? Webstart will download it for you. Don't have the latest Java Runtime? Webstart will go get that too. It couldn't be easier to play with FofZ today.
- Support for elementary functions including polynomial, trigonometric, hyperbolic, logarithmic and any composition you can imagine. Simply type in the formular you want and hit enter to render perform the mapping.
- 3D view of image of function. FofZ can map the image of the function to the Riemann Sphere or produce a 3D view with the modulus, argument, real part of image or imaginary part of the function image as the height above the xy plane. All views are rotable via mouse the mouse.
- 2D view of image. FofZ can display the image of the function on the complex plane.
- Animation. If you use the variable t in your function you can use the animation panel to animation the image through sucessive increments in t. You can also set the domain rotating about it's center or about the origin.
- Two different drawing engines. FofZ comes with two methods of image output, RayTrace and JOGL. RayTrace is a homebrewed 3D renderer using swing as it's canvas. JOGL (Java OpenGL) allows the figure to be rendered using your graphics card 3D OpenGL routines. This can be particular useful if you machine is slower as OpenGL rendering is far more efficient.
- Mouse editable domains. Each domain in FofZ can be edited by selecting edit mode and then simple dragging the part of the domain you wish to move. If you wish to move multiple parts of the domain lassoo the ones you want and then just drag them.
- Domain transforms via the mouse. Each domain can be rotated about it's center via the rotate handle. Each domain can also be stretched using the stretch handle.
- Inline Help. On by default, though it can be turned off, inline help tells you how to use a control when you hover your mouse pointed over it.
- Antialiasing of the function image. For whenever you need to screenshot.
- Source code available under the GPLv2 for those that wish to see what's going on, submit patches or even make their own fork of the project if they believe they can do more.
- Documentation for most of the inner workings using JavaDoc.