5

I'm new to Latex and I think I am going to use it for my physics classes in school. I have found a really good template: https://www.sharelatex.com/templates/journals/aip/ (I use sharelatex) which is great equationwise and such, but I don't seem to be able to draw a graph. I want to draw a distance-time graph but I don't know how to do it!

How would I go on to do that?

3 Answers3

4

An example of the height-time graph of an object thrown upward vertically.

\documentclass[pstricks,border=24pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{pst-plot}
\pstVerb
{
    /U 20 def
    /G -10 def
}
\psset{yunit=.5cm}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\begin{document}
\begin{pspicture}(5,21)
    \psaxes[Dy=5](0,0)(4.5,21.5)[$t$ {[\si{\s}]},0][$h$ {[\si{\m}]},90]
    \psplot[algebraic,linecolor=blue]{0}{4}{U*x+G/2*x^2}
\end{pspicture}
\end{document}

enter image description here

In this example, the object is thrown at an initial speed 20 meter per second vertically upward under the influence of earth gravity of 10 meter per second squared.

Just for fun!

Compile with pdflatex -shell-escape animation.tex.

% This file name is animation.tex
\documentclass[preview,border=12pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{frames.tex}
\documentclass[pstricks,border=24pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{pst-plot}
\pstVerb
{
    /U 20 def
    /G -10 def
}
\def\h(#1){U*#1+G/2*#1^2}
\psset{yunit=.5cm}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\begin{document}
\multido{\n=.0+.4}{11}{%
\begin{pspicture}(5,21)
    \psaxes[Dy=5](0,0)(4.5,21.5)[$t$ {[\si{\s}]},0][$h$ {[\si{\m}]},90]
    \psplot[algebraic,linecolor=blue]{0}{4}{\h(x)}
    \psline[linestyle=dashed,linecolor=gray](\n,0)(*{\n} {\h(x)})(0,0|*{\n} {\h(x)})
    \pscircle*[linecolor=red](0,0|*{\n} {\h(x)}){3pt}
\end{pspicture}}
\end{document}
\end{filecontents*}

\usepackage{animate,pgffor}
\foreach \compiler/\ext in {latex/tex,dvips/dvi,ps2pdf/ps}{\immediate\write18{\compiler\space frames.\ext}}
\begin{document}
\animategraphics[controls,autoplay,loop,scale=1]{1}{frames}{}{}
\end{document}

enter image description here

3

Graphics can be drawn with a number of systems, including PGF/TikZ, PSTricks and Asymptote.

Graphs (ie plots) can be drawn with PGFPlots, PST-2dplot and PST-3dplot.

There are most likely other drawing packages that I'm not aware of; have a look around CTAN.

ChrisS
  • 13,529
3

As a followup to ChrisS, I would PGFPlots for this. Here's an example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage{pgfplots}

\begin{document}

Position vs time graph:

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}
\addplot  {5+10*x-5*x^2};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

with some styling options:

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[axis lines = middle,smooth,xlabel = $t$ (\si{\s}), ylabel =$y$ (\si{\m}), minor tick num =1, grid=both, no markers]
\addplot +[domain=0:3] {5+10*x-5*x^2};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

enter image description here