What's new in Photon 2.4.8.1
Oct 11, 2022
- Points of interest caused Photon to crash if the points were too far outside of the graphing range. The issue has been resolved.
New in Photon 2.4.8.0 (Jan 27, 2021)
- Function points of interest: moving your mouse over functions now causes significant points to appear. When your mouse gets close to an x intercept or a maximum / minimum value, a red dot will be plotted where the point of interest is and the location will be given as a coordinate point. This makes finding zeros and extreme values very convenient. Note: to save computational power, no more than 20 points of interest will be calculated at one time, so if you're plotting something with many x intercepts or min/max values, you may have to adjust your viewing range to see other points of interest.
New in Photon 2.4.7.0 (Dec 10, 2020)
- VB Gadgets is excited to bring you a graphing calculator that looks better, runs faster, and can do much more than its predecessor - ParaGraph 6.5.2. ParaGraph was written in Visual Basic 6, a grumpy old language that could use some updating. Photon was written in Visual Basic.NET with Visual Studio - a more current and powerful programming language.
- Keep reading for more information about Photon, or check out the help page if you're confused about how Photon works.
New in Photon 2.4.6.0 (Oct 25, 2020)
- VB Gadgets is excited to bring you a graphing calculator that looks better, runs faster, and can do much more than its predecessor - ParaGraph 6.5.2. ParaGraph was written in Visual Basic 6, a grumpy old language that could use some updating. Photon was written in Visual Basic.NET with Visual Studio - a more current and powerful programming language.
- Keep reading for more information about Photon, or check out the help page if you're confused about how Photon works.
New in Photon 2.4.5.0 (Apr 14, 2020)
- Photon can now graph three dimensional data points and perform best-fit regression for a 3D parametric line and a 3D plane. Additionally, Photon can now save TIFF images.
New in Photon 2.4.4.2 (Aug 10, 2018)
- Four new distribution functions have been added to Photon. These include the F-distributions and student-t distributions for both probability density and cumulative distributions.
New in Photon 2.4.4.0 (Aug 1, 2018)
- Five new statistics functions have been added to Photon: Binomial PDF, Binomial CDF, Inverse Normal, Normal PDF, and Normal CDF. Use these functions to calculate probabilities of normally distributed data.
New in Photon 2.4.3.1 (May 6, 2018)
- Small bug fixes - a text rendering bug and an errant equation referenced in the chemistry library has been fixed.
New in Photon 2.4.3.0 (Nov 22, 2017)
- VB Gadgets is excited to bring you a graphing calculator that looks better, runs faster, and can do much more than its predecessor - ParaGraph 6.5.2. ParaGraph was written in Visual Basic 6, a grumpy old language that could use some updating. Photon was written in Visual Basic.NET with Visual Studio - a more current and powerful programming language.
New in Photon 2.4.2.6 (Aug 10, 2017)
- Some more minor bug fixes regarding text rendering.
New in Photon 2.4.2.5 (Aug 10, 2017)
- The "atmosphere" (atm) and "millimeters of mercury" (mmHg) units has been added to the set of pressure units that Photon converts.
New in Photon 2.4.2.4 (Aug 10, 2017)
- A few more bug fixes - these ones were program halting, although they were rather uncommon.
New in Photon 2.4.2.3 (Aug 10, 2017)
- Minor bug fixes regarding text rendering.
New in Photon 2.4.2.2 (Aug 10, 2017)
- Performance update - The Photon executable is now 17 KB smaller than before due to the removal of "junk" debugging code. In theory, Photon should run slightly faster now, although the difference appears to be negligible so far. Additionally, a few small bugs have been fixed.
New in Photon 2.4.2.1 (Aug 10, 2017)
- A rather nasty bug that has been in place most likely since version 2.0.0.1 has been fixed. This bug made Photon virtually unusable for expressions longer than about 30 characters (due to an inefficient regex string), which is terrible! This is a very bad mistake on Photon's part, and VBGadgets apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused. The bad regex sequence has been removed. Other such performance halting bugs likely do not exist, as Photon's speed is now back up to lighting-fast standards.
New in Photon 2.4.2.0 (Aug 10, 2017)
- Scientific notation now renders properly when viewed as an image.
New in Photon 2.4.1.0 (Aug 10, 2017)
- You can now perform line integrals through a vector field. To do so, just plot a line as well as a vector field and Photon will automatically assume you're looking for the line integral. The calculated answer will appear in the same manner as a regular integral. This works for lines drawn in the 2D x-y plane as well as 3D parametric lines in 3D vector fields. Additionally, if you're wondering, surface integrals through 3D vector fields (flux) is not planned to be added to Photon's abilities.
New in Photon 2.4.0.0 (Aug 10, 2017)
- Yet another feature: vector fields! Both 2D and 3D vector fields are now possible in Photon. Enter vector equations using x and y (and z if in 3D) using i-hat / j-hat notation. To scale the drawn size of the vectors, add a semicolon and a number. For example, "2/x*i + 3*j; 3" draws the i-j vector field with a scale value of 3. If you don't include a scale value, a default value of 4 will be used. If you have a zero vector in one of your directions, you must include that in your vector equation, like 0*i + y*j.
New in Photon 2.3.0.1 (Aug 10, 2017)
- Another bug in the equation rendering system has been fixed.
New in Photon 2.3.0.0 (Aug 10, 2017)
- Wow, these large updates just keep coming! This one brings a new graphing mode - parametric 3D surfaces (a multi-variable calculus concept). Before, the only type of 3D surface you could graph was the standard z = f(x, y). Now, you can plot surfaces that are defined parametrically, using u and v as your parametric variables: x = f(u, v); y = g(u, v); z = h(u, v).
- An example has been added in the "help" drop-down menu in case you forget what to do.
New in Photon 2.2.0.0 (Aug 10, 2017)
- Calculating sums is now possible! Use the variable 'k' for your increment, and use semicolons to denote the starting and stopping value of k. For example, 2*k; 0; 4 = 20, refers to the sum of 2*k from k = 0 to 4.
New in Photon 2.1.0.0 (Aug 10, 2017)
- In this update, you now have access to a large reference of commonly used mathematical equations, such as rules for differentiation, or the area of a circle. There are 176 mathematical reference equations with this update. Obviously, there are bound to be additional equations that have been missed; they will be added with future updates. To access this new feature, just click on the book icon at the top. (The code writing icon has been updated to more closely resemble its meaning.) This update was made possible with the inclusion of the new text rendering system put in place with the 2.0 update. Additionally, some more bugs were fixed in the text rendering system.
New in Photon 2.0.0.1 (Aug 10, 2017)
- As expected, some bugs were found in the text rendering system, and have been fixed.
New in Photon 2.0.0.0 (Aug 10, 2017)
- A massive update! You can now display the equations you type in as you would see them written on paper. Check out the updated settings on the "Behavior" tab, or just press CTRL+R to get going right away! (Actually, you don't have to; the new setting is enabled by default!) When the setting is enabled, just move your mouse over the history box, and the line of text you're over will be displayed graphically.
New in Photon 1.4.0.0 (Aug 10, 2017)
- 1.4.0.0 Sequential plots are now available. Use the variable 'n' instead of 'x' to activate sequential plots. Also, you can now evaluate factorials using exclamation marks instead of typing 'fact()'. And, two new functions have been added, allowing you to find the greatest common factor (gcf) and the lowest common multiple (lcm) of two numbers. And lastly, if you're curious about some under the hood stuff, Photon's text recognition algorithms now use regex logic to match plot types, allowing an altogether smarter system. This is important for a host of reasons that may take too long to explain - the important part is that Photon is better than ever!
New in Photon 1.3.7.2 (Aug 4, 2016)
- Text entry for UV transformations has been optimized.
New in Photon 1.3.7.1 (Aug 4, 2016)
- UV transforms now get saved if you save a file.
New in Photon 1.3.7.0 (Aug 4, 2016)
- UV transforms (used in multi-variable calculus) are now possible! For three dimensional plotting, the transforms are U-V-W. Transform your coordinate system by right clicking the plotting range and clicking the last option, titled "UV transformations." Some small bug fixing also comes with this update.
New in Photon 1.3.6.0 (Aug 4, 2016)
- 3D plots are now smoother in appearance and can be scaled vertically by scrolling the mouse on the edge of the viewing range. Smooth plotting can be turned off by unchecking the anti-aliasing box in the options pane.
New in Photon 1.3.2.1 (May 19, 2016)
- I'm hunting down as many bugs as I can find! Photon interprets multiple lines of text differently, using "A" now works in variable definitions, and some code has been optimized.
New in Photon 1.3.2.0 (May 19, 2016)
- Added support for tracing in 3D parametric equations and using the animation variable "A" for 3D surfaces and 3D parametric equations.
New in Photon 1.3.1.0 (May 19, 2016)
- Photon can now graph 3D parametric equations! For example, type "x = cos(t); y = sin(t); z = t/5" to get a spiral.
New in Photon 1.3.0.5 (May 19, 2016)
- Two bugs squashed - typing "->" crashed the program, and another bug was associated with minimizing the window.
New in Photon 1.3.0.4 (May 19, 2016)
- Two other bad input places caused the program to crash, but have now been fixed.
New in Photon 1.3.0.3 (May 19, 2016)
- Typing bad input into the animation limits caused the program to crash. The issue is resolved.
New in Photon 1.3.0.2 (May 19, 2016)
- Grid squares for the 3D plots were overlapping, resulting in an effect that looked like they were changing colors very slightly. This issue is resolved.
New in Photon 1.3.0.1 (May 19, 2016)
- The answers to multiple numeric integrals were displayed backwards - they are now displayed in the correct order.
New in Photon 1.3.0.0 (May 19, 2016)
- User defined functions are now possible! You can now create your own add-ons for Photon by writing custom VBScript code. Click the book icon in the top right corner of the window to access the code page.
New in Photon 1.2.0.7 (May 19, 2016)
- If your computer's language settings were not set to English, there was a chance that Photon could crash because of unexpected number formatting rules. Photon is now specifically set to English so that these issues don't occur.
New in Photon 1.2.0.6 (May 19, 2016)
- Several error management fixes have been put into place. The program would crash with certain bad input; the issue is resolved.
New in Photon 1.2.0.5 (May 19, 2016)
- On the unit conversions page, if the numeric answers were displayed in scientific notation, zeros were cut off of the exponent. The bug is fixed.
New in Photon 1.2.0.4 (May 19, 2016)
- Because it's only possible to plot one 3D graph at a time, entering a second 3D equation will cause the first one to be removed, just like with slope fields.
New in Photon 1.2.0.3 (May 19, 2016)
- You can now graph solutions to slope fields. Simply click the viewing area while a slope field is plotted.
New in Photon 1.2.0.2 (May 19, 2016)
- A very minor issue with the function tables has been fixed.
New in Photon 1.2.0.1 (May 19, 2016)
- A very minor issue with the settings interface has been fixed.
New in Photon 1.2.0.0 (May 19, 2016)
- Another major update: 3D graphing is now possible! Enter functions in the form z = f(x, y) to get a colorful, three-dimensional graph that you can rotate with your mouse and zoom in or out with your mouse wheel. For example, type (x^2 - y^2) / 5 and watch the 3D graph happen! You can only have one 3D graph at a time, and you cannot simultaneously plot 3D graphs and regular 2D graphs at the same time.
New in Photon 1.1.0.0 (May 19, 2016)
- Photon has been reworked in a major way! Certain tasks are easier to get done and some new features have been added. At face value, things don't seem to be all that different, but they are! A row of buttons has been added to the top left area of the window. A quick description of each new button is below.
- First button: Takes you back to the main graphing window.
- Second button: Function tables - every time you graph a function, its x and y values will be added to a function table.
- Third button: Data entry - this has been reworked from the previous version to be easier to use - just enter your data and you're all set. Best fits and statistical information are just a click away.
- Fourth button: Matrix calculator - not much has changed from the previous version, except that your matrix calculator no longer has its own window, making things easier to use.
- Fifth button: Unit conversions - a brand new feature! Using this is pretty straightforward.
- Sixth button: Settings - also moved out of its own window; the moment you click anything, the settings will be changed and saved. You can still revert your settings with the reset button.