Despite the fact that Maple V has become one of the most popular computer algebra systems on the market, surprisingly few users realize its potential in the field of scientific visualization. The purpose of this book is to equip the reader with a variety of graphics tools needed on the voyage of discovery into the complex and often beautiful world of curves and surfaces. A comprehensive treatment of Maple's graphics commands and structures is combined with an introduction to the main aspects of visual perception. Top priority is given to the use of light, color, perspective, and geometric transformations. Numerous examples, accompanied by pictures (many in color), cover all aspects of Maple graphics. The examples can be easily customized to suit the individual needs of the reader. The approach is context independent, and as such will appeal to students, educators, and researchers in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. For the general user at any level of experience, this book can serve as a comprehensive reference manual. For the beginner, it offers a user- friendly elementary introduction to the subject, with mathematical requirements kept to a minimum. For those interested in advanced mathematical visualization, it explains how to maximize Maple's graphical capabilities. In particular, this book shows how to turn Maple into an excellent modeling tool capable of generating elaborate surfaces that conventional modelers cannot produce. These surfaces can be exported to an external ray tracer (e.g. POV-ray) for sophisticated photo-realistic rendering. All of the Maple code segments which are presented in the book, as well as high-resolution pictures showing alternative renderingsof some of the book's color plates, are included on the accompanying DOS diskette.

Despite the fact that Maple is one of the most popular computer algebra systems on the market, surprisingly few users realise its potential for scientific visualisation. This book equips readers with the graphics tools needed on the voyage into the complex and beautiful world of curves and surfaces. A comprehensive treatment of Maples graphics commands and structures is combined with an introduction to the main aspects of visual perception, with priority given to the use of light, colour, perspective, and geometric transformations. Numerous examples cover all aspects of Maple graphics, and these may be easily tailored to the individual needs of the reader. The approach is context-independent, and as such will appeal to students, educators, and researchers in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. For the general user at any level of experience, this book will serve as a comprehensive reference manual. For the beginner, it offers a user-friendly introduction to the subject, with mathematical requirements kept to a minimum, while, for those interested in advanced mathematical visualisation, it explains how to maximise Maples graphical capabilities.

Pluripotential theory is a recently developed non-linear complex counterpart of classical potential theory. Its main area of application is multidimensional complex analysis. The central part of the pluripotential theory is occupied by maximal plurisubharmonic functions and the generalized complex Monge-Ampere operator. The interplay between these two concepts provides the focal point of this monograph, which contains an up-to-date account of the developments from the large volume of recent work in this area. A substantial proportion of the work is devoted to classical properties of subharmonic and plurisubharmonic functions, which makes the pluripotential theory available for the first time to a wide audience of analysts.