.\" DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE!  It was generated by help2man 1.47.4.
.TH SURF "1" "December 2016" "surf (Debian 1.0.6+ds-4)" "Surf Tool"
.SH NAME
surf \- visualization of algebraic curves and surfaces
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B surf
[\fI\,FILE\/\fR]...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B surf
is a script driven tool to render algebraic curves and surfaces.

The only input needed is the equation of an algebraic curve/surface in
everyday mathematical notation. The output is a (series of) color or
black and white image(s) in one of several file formats.

.B surf
also provides a C-style command language which helps working out more
complicated equations.

The resolution of an image is only bounded by the available
memory. Since the image is stored as an array of floats and because some
image processing algorithms need a copy of the image, you need at least
width*height*12 bytes of virtual memory.

A relevant extension to the image output filename can be automatically provided by
either enabling the auto-extension machinery
or giving a dummy extension.
The auto-extension machinery is disabled by default for backward compatibility,
while the implemented dummy extensions are:
\fI.xxx\fR,
\fI.XXX\fR,
\fI.auto-extension\fR,
and
\fI.automatic-extension\fR.

.B surf
can handle curves/surfaces up to degree 30. The main features include
.B algebraic
.BR curves ,
.B algebraic
.BR surfaces ,
.B hyper plane
.BR sections ,
.B lines on
.BR surfaces ,
.B multiple
.BR curves/surfaces ,
.B adaptive anti aliasing
and
.BR dithering .
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-\-disable\-auto\-extension\fR
disable automatic extension for graphic files (default)
.TP
\fB\-\-enable\-auto\-extension\fR
enable automatic extension for graphic files
.TP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-verbose\fR
verbose operation, print the executed commands (default)
.TP
\fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR, \fB\-\-silent\fR
quiet operation, do not print the executed commands
.TP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
display this help and exit
.TP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
display version tuple and exit
.SH AUTHORS
Stephan Endrass,
Hans Huelf,
Ruediger Oertel,
Kai Schneider,
Ralf Schmitt,
Johannes Beigel
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1997\-2015 Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz
.br
Copyright (C) 1996\-1997 Friedrich Alexander Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg