Message Boards

WOLFRAM COMMUNITY

9947 Views

5 Replies

2 Total Likes

View groups...

Follow this post

Share this post:

GROUPS:

How can I optimize my code for Daniel Velleman plots?

Simon Cowell

Posted 12 years ago

Hi Everyone, I am not experienced with the different programming paradigms offered by the current version of Mathematica. I have written the following code to produce visualisations of complex functions, in the style of Daniel Velleman's very nice plots. My code runs pretty slowly. Please can anyone give me some ideas for how to optimise it ? Thank you very much ! Clear[complexcolourplot, f, saturationscalefactor, brightnessscalefactor, sidelength, increment, phi, t, halfsidelength, halfincrement, x, y]; phi[t_] := t/(1 + t); complexcolourplot[f_, saturationscalefactor_, brightnessscalefactor_, sidelength_, increment_] := Module[{halfsidelength, halfincrement, x, y}, halfsidelength = sidelength/2; halfincrement = increment/2; Graphics[ Table[{Hue[Arg[f[x + I y]]/(2 Pi), 1 - phi[saturationscalefactor Abs[f[x + I y]]], phi[brightnessscalefactor Abs[f[x + I y]]]], Rectangle[{x - halfincrement, y - halfincrement}, {x + halfincrement, y + halfincrement}]}, {x, -halfsidelength, halfsidelength, increment}, {y, -halfsidelength, halfsidelength, increment}]]] For example, here is the identity function, which shows which colours are assigned to which complex numbers: complexcolourplot[Identity, .2, 2, 20, .2] and here is a simple monomial: Clear[f, z]; f[z_] := z^2; complexcolourplot[f, .2, 2, 20, .2]

POSTED BY: Simon Cowell

5 Replies

Sort By:

Shenghui Yang

Shenghui Yang, WOLFRAM

Posted 12 years ago

I guess that your way might be the easiest and most efficient way to handle this problem. Usually ColorFunction can handle such request pretty well. I notice that your color scheme depends upon both the arg value and radius of a complex number, which is quite painful for the build-in ColorFunciton option for DensityPlot or ContourPlot (these plot function may be what you need). Because it requires sort of a single-argument function. Another way of handling this is to use the Raster function along with ColorConvert. Here is an example: phi[t_]:=t/(1+t); complexcolourRaster[f_,saturationscalefactor_,brightnessscalefactor_,sidelength_,increment_]:= Module[{halfsidelength,halfincrement,x,y},halfsidelength=sidelength/2; halfincrement=increment/2; Raster[Table[List@@ColorConvert[ Hue[Arg[f[x+I y]]/(2 Pi), 1-phi[saturationscalefactor Abs[f[x+I y]]], phi[brightnessscalefactor Abs[f[x+I y]]]], "RGB"] , {x,-halfsidelength,halfsidelength,increment}, {y,-halfsidelength,halfsidelength,increment}] ] ] Briefly, ColorConvert function transfer your Hue[] objects to RGB[] list which is used in the Raster[] object. After you wrap the Graphics function around the Raster[], you get the plot. f[z_] := z^2; Graphics@complexcolourRaster[f, .2, 2, 20, .1] Performancewise these two methods are the same because the bottleneck is really from the Front End trying to render everything nicely, Yet the second one gives you a better option for storing and sharing the graphics.

POSTED BY: Shenghui Yang

Sam Carrettie

Sam Carrettie, Freelancer

Posted 12 years ago

Simon, what are exactly Daniel Velleman plots? Do you have a link or a reference?

POSTED BY: Sam Carrettie

Simon Cowell

Posted 12 years ago

Wow ! Thank you very much for the helpful information, Shenghui - I appreciate you taking the time ! I will experiment with your raster method next time I am on campus. Sam - I am referring to this paper: The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra: A Visual Approach which is I think where I first saw these kind of plots. In fact I think the title of my original post has been edited, presumably by a mod. I don't think I used the term "Daniel Velleman Plots", and I am pretty sure I used the British English spelling of "optimise" ! ;)