How to plot a function in the complex plane?

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Kelsey
Kelsey on 22 Jan 2014
Commented: Kelsey on 22 Jan 2014
How would I plot the function F = R*exp(i*theta)
where F, R, and theta are functions of w, and i is an imaginary number?
I'm just confused where to start…like how to define w and where to go from there. I'm also confused how to actually have MATLAB plot it correctly in the complex plane (i.e., on the Real and Imaginary axes).
Thanks so much, in advance!

Answers (1)

Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 22 Jan 2014
To check, you effectively have
F = @(w) R(w) .* exp(i * theta(w));
where R and theta are functions?
w = linspace(-pi, pi, 101);
result = F(w);
After that you need to decide how you want to represent the complex plane. There is no inherent ability to plot in the complex plane as humans cannot see into the complex plane. But you can do things like,
plot(w(:), [real(w(:)), imag(w(:))])
  1 Comment
Kelsey
Kelsey on 22 Jan 2014
Thank you so much! You helped me a lot with splitting F up into it's real and imaginary parts.

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