Plotting functions in two dimensions
Functions play an important role in mathematics. To visualize them to better understand their properties, so that we can see roots and extreme points, we can plot them in a coordinate system. In this recipe, we will see how to easily plot functions. First, let's print the polynomial function f(x) = x^3 - 5*x.
How to do it...
We will use the pgfplots
package, which is based on PGF/TikZ. We already used it in the previous chapter to draw various diagrams. Now it will plot a function for us. Follow these steps:
- Start with a document class. For this recipe, we decide on the
standalone
class, which is great for creating single graphics with just a small margin, but you can choose thearticle
class or another one as well.\documentclass[border=10pt]{standalone}
- Load the
pgfplots
package:\usepackage{pgfplots}
- Start the document and open a
tikzpicture
environment:\begin{document} \begin{tikzpicture}
- Begin an
axis
environment with centered axis lines:\begin...