surf(1)

NAME
surf - visualization of algebraic curves and surfaces

SYNOPSIS
surf -n|--no-gui file ...
surf [Gtk options] [-x|--exec] [--progress-dialog] [--auto-resize] file ...
surf --help

DESCRIPTION
surf is a tool to render algebraic curves and surfaces. It is script driven and has (optionally) a nifty graphical user interface using the Gtk widget set. The only input needed is the equation of an algebraic curve/surface in everyday mathematical notation. The output is a (series of) color or black and white image(s) in one of several file formats. surf also provides a C-style command language which helps working out more complicated equations. The resolution of an image is only bounded by the available memory. Since the image is stored as an array of floats and because some image processing algorithms need a copy of the image, you need at least width*height*12 bytes of virtual memory. surf can handle curves/surfaces up to degree 30. The main features include algebraic curves, algebraic surfaces, hyper plane sections, lines on surfaces, multiple curves/surfaces, adaptive anti aliasing and dithering.

OPTIONS
If you run surf with GUI support (i.e. without the -n|--no-gui option) the standard Gtk options are recognized.

-n, --no-gui
    Run without a graphical user interface, just execute the scripts given as files and exit thereafter. In case surf has been compiled without GUI support this option does nothing and scripts are always executed non-interactively.

-x, --exec
    Execute scripts passed as files immediately. Otherwise the scripts are just loaded, not executed.

--progress-dialog
    Pop up a progress dialog instead of the status bar display during calculations.

--auto-reszie
    Automatically resize the image windows to the size of the image. Be aware that there's no check whether the image size is bigger than your actual screen size.

--help
    Display usage information.

COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1996-1997 Friedrich Alexander Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg, 1997-2000 Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz

AUTHORS
Stephan Endrass, Hans Huelf, Ruediger Oertel, Kai Schneider, Ralf Schmitt, Johannes Beigel