Families of Curves

Descartes is capable of representing  families of graphs, as the following example shows:

In order to draw families of graphs, it is enough to add on the configuration of any Descartes graphic tool  (EQUATIONS, SEGMENTS, POINTS, ARCS or CURVES) a statement like this one:

sequence=p[a,b]n

where: p is the name of the variable used to generate the family of graphs,  [a,b] is the interval of values which p will sweep and n is the number of subintervals in which [a,b] will be subdivided. The number of graphs generated is   n+1, unless a=b , in which case there is only one graph. This example illustrates mainly the use of the tool EQUATIONS and its sequence feature. Observe also the use of the tool TEXTS to explain the scope of the values of p.

The following example shows how the tool ARCS may also take advantage of the sequence feature to create families of circles.

All the blue circles pass through the points [-a,0] and [a,0]. The red circles are orthogonl to the blue ones.

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	Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Aņo 2000