This section describes dynagraph's tubeplot()
command for plotting tubes around curves in space. It takes a curve
description as
in spacecurve() but instead of drawing the curve, draws a tube of
constant circular cross-section around the curve.
The radius of the cross-sectional area can be specified with the
tuberadius=r option. The default tuberadius
is 1.0.
The number of points to use to draw a cross-section can be set with
the tubepoints=n option. The default tubepoints
is 16.
The number of points to use along the axis of the tube can be set
with the numpoints=n option. The default numpoints
is 60.
tubeplot([f, g, h], t=a..b);
f, g, h: are expressions in t
Numerous optional arguments can modify the default appearance of the tube. These are described in Plotting Options.
Multiple tubes can be plotted with one tubeplot command by enclosing
their definitions in curly braces {...}.
Examples:
> tubeplot([cos(t), sin(t), 0], t=0..2*Pi, tuberadius=1/2);
> tubeplot({[cos(t), sin(t), t], [-cos(t), -sin(t), t]}, t=0..2*Pi);