Chapter 14: ECMAScript and Polar Equations | Fundamentals of SVG Programming: Concepts to Source Code (Graphics Series)

Mathematical Terminology

The second half of this book (and most of the supplementary code on the companion CD-ROM) contains many graphics images that are based on mathematical equations. You will often see modifications and enhancements of these equations in order to generate a greater variety of interesting graphics images. In such cases, the graphics images are still named after the original equation in order to convey the source of the key idea that underlies the image in question. In other cases, the graphics images depart substantially from the strict mathematical interpretation of the equation. The names of these graphics images are meant to give you an indication of the 'spirit' of the original mathematical equation, even though the generalization may depart considerably from the original equation. Many times the mathematical term for the given graphics image simply does not exist, which necessitates a mechanism for describing the images in a reasonable fashion. While it might be more correct to use the name 'gradientGeneralizedConeBasedOnASetOfEllipses.svg' for an SVG document, it's unnecessarily unwieldy; on the other hand, the simpler and shorter name 'ellipticConeGradient.svg' conveys just as much information about the nature of the contents of the SVG document, provided that you keep in mind that you are dealing with a generalization rather than the strict mathematical definition.