MathCad 15 3D Graph

[ytc]

Hi,

Has anyone using mathcad 15 experience problem displacing 3D graphs. I installed mathcad 15 on my desktop pc with ATI HD 5570 graphic card. 3D graphs do not display at all, just blank. I have a friend, who has mathcad 15 installed on a pc desktop with intel graphic accelerator, has no problem with displaying 3D graphs. For 2D graphs, the software displays perfectly fine on my machine, but not 3D ones. I wonder what is happening. I have tried upgrading my graphic driver to the latest version, but to no avail. Anyone out there experience the same problem with ati graphic card when using mathcad 15.

[RichardJ · Accepted solution]

Right click on the graph and uncheck "Border". See if that fixes it.

[ytc]

Thanks Richard Jackson,

It works by turning off the border option. I wonder why it is so for ATI graphic card. It does'nt happen for nvidia and intel-based graphic accelerator cards.

[RichardJ]

The 3D graph uses the OpenGL graphics library, so the only answer is that it's some quirk of that library.

[JamesACarterIII]

Richard,

Oddly enough, this is not a problem with MathCAD 14 and I don't recall seeing it in MathCAD 15 F000. I would hope that one thing PTC can get really right is 3D surfaces, geometry, and rendering.

I am hoping that the next maintenance release addresses 3D plots in both MathCAD and PrimE. Hardware acceleration should be supported by a company that makes an industry standard tool for solid model design.

Feature suggestion: Also, I would love to see a 3D surface plot engine that is capable of plotting 3D surfaces for points that are not uniformly sampled in X and Y, like a hexagonally or tessellatedly sampled set (such as those produced in FEA codes). Even MATLAB lacks this capability.

Just my $0.02

[RichardJ]

It goes back long before 15, that is for sure. See:

http://communities.ptc.com/message/148442#32032

for example.

[JamesACarterIII]

That's even more peculiar. I have used MathCAD since its original (DOS V1) release and have never had this problem before. Certainly not when using MathCAD 14 on the very same machine. Doesn't it seem odd that I have never seen or even heard of this issue since 3D surface plots were introduced to MathCAD?

It just keeps getting stranger...

[ReinhartNeubert]

I do have the same problem in connection with ATI HD3450 graphics card and even with other models.

Any news on the problem?

[MauryH.4]

I also had the same problem with twin nVidia GTX260s in SLI... this rig tears through Crysis 2 on Extreme graphics level, but the 3D surface plot of a complex function was flashing and stuttering like crazy until I was able to get it to recognize my right-click and turned off the Border checkbox (thanks for that Richard). Definitely some code issue I would think.

Interestingly enough, it doesn't happen if I have large steps in the range of the function variables (e.g. -2 .. 2), but when I put in tighter steps for a better mesh, that's when it starts having issues (-2, -1.95 .. 2). It looks like the program is re-drawing the surface constantly; at least while I watched it for a bit that's how it appeared. Hopefully PTC addresses this issue soon as it's really annoying, especially when trying to use multiple plots for Ridge Analysis (the matrices already tell you what you want to know, but the plots help you visualize it).

~Maury