The Handbook and Atlas of Curves describes available analytic and visual properties of plane and spatial curves. Information is presented in a unique format, with one half of the book detailing investigation tools and the other devoted to the Atlas of Plane Curves. Main definitions, formulas, and facts from curve theory (plane and spatial) are discussed.

Broad appeal to undergraduate teachers, students, and engineers; Concise descriptions of properties of basic planar curves from different perspectives; useful handbook for software engineers; A special chapter---"Geometry on the Web"---will further enhance the usefulness of this book as an informal tutorial resource.; Good mathematical notation, descriptions of properties of lines and curves, and the illustration of geometric concepts facilitate the design of computer graphics tools and computer animation.; Video game designers, for example, will find a clear discussion and illustration of hard-to-understand trajectory design concepts.; Good supplementary text for geometry courses at the undergraduate and advanced high school levels

Describes the drawing of plane curves, cycloidal curves, spirals, glissettes and others.

DIVOne of the most beautiful aspects of geometry. Information on general properties, derived curves, geometric and analytic properties of each curve. 89 illus. /div

Practical Handbook of Curve Fitting is a reference work assembled by Arlinghaus and a set of editors with well over a century of combined experience in various disciplines and activities related to curve fitting. The book demonstrates how to analyze World data bases and graph and map the results. Default settings in software packages can produce attractive graphs of data imported into the software. Often, however, the default graph has no equation associated with it and cannot therefore be used as a tool for further analysis or projection of the data. The same software can often be used to generate curves from equations. The reader is shown directly, and in a series of steps, how to fit curves to data using Lotus 1-2-3. There are traditional unbounded curve fitting techniques-lines of least squares, exponentials, logistic curves, and Gompertz curves. There is the bounded curve fitting technique of cubic spline interpolation. Beyond these, there is a detailed application of Feigenbaum's graphical analysis from chaos theory, and there is a hint as to how fractal geometry might come into play. Curve fitting algorithms take on new life when they are actually used on real-world data. They are used in numerous worked examples drawn from electronic data bases of public domain information from the Stars data base of The World Bank and from the WRD data base of the World Resources Institute. The applications are current and reflect a state-of-the-art interest in the human dimensions of global change.

Splines find ever increasing application in the numerical methods, computer-aided design, and computer graphics areas. The Handbook on Splines for the User not only provides an excellent introduction to basic concepts and methods but also includes the SplineGuide-a computer diskette that allows the reader to practice using important programs.These programs help the user to build interpolating and smoothing cubic and bicubic splines of all classes. Programs are described in Fortran for spline functions and C for geometric splines. The Handbook describes spline functions and geometric splines and provides simple, but effective algorithms. It covers virtually all of the important types of cubic and bicubic splines, functions, variables, curves, and surfaces. The book is written in a straightforward manner and requires little mathematical background. When necessary, the authors give theoretical treatments in an easy-to-use form. Through the Handbook on Splines for the User, introduce yourself to the exciting world of splines and learn to use them in practical applications and computer graphics.

Contains more than 1400 curves, almost three times as many as in the 1987 edition. The curves are normalized in appearance to aid making comparisons among materials. All diagrams include metric units, and many also include U.S. customary units

Expert treatment introduces semi-Riemannian geometry and its principal physical application, Einstein's theory of general relativity, using the Cartan exterior calculus as a principal tool. Prerequisites include linear algebra and advanced calculus. 2012 edition.