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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Oct 15.
Published in final edited form as: Phys Today. 2018;71(2):https://doi.org/10.1063/pt.3.3846.

Figure 4. Cutting through a surface.

Figure 4.

One of the options offered in the DLMF visualizations is cutting plane control. Observing the intersection of a plane with a function surface can provide the viewer with a unique perspective. The images above show a cutting plane moving in the x direction through a surface representing the incomplete gamma function γ*(a, x). As the plane cuts through the surface, intersection curves are projected onto opposite ends of the bounding box and also displayed in a pop-up window. In any coordinate direction, users can manipulate standard media controls to create an animation, or manually move the plane by using a slider bar. Of course, in the Riemann zeta function surface (Figure 3) yet another view of the non-trivial zeros is revealed by stopping a plane moving in the x direction at x = 0.5. (See DLMF chapters on Incomplete Gamma and Related Functions or Zeta and Related Functions for more information on these functions.)