I need to plot a parabola and ellipse. However the ellipse is giving me trouble. Can anyone help? The equations are: y = -5*x^2 + 2 and (x^2/16) + (y^2/2) = 4
I've tried this code but obviously I feel like like it isn't right.
x = linspace(-5, 5);
y1 = (x.^2/16) + (y.^2/2) - 1;
y2 = -5*x.^2 +2;
figure(1)
plot(x, y1)
hold on
plot(x, y2)
hold off
Firstly, you did not define a range variable x. Secondly, the ellipse won't pass the vertical line test and can't be plotted like a regular function f(x). Thirdly, your equation y1 = (x.^2/16) + (y.^2/2) - 1; is non-sensical because you have y on each side.
You could correct your method by defining a range variable x1 and x2 that each have appropriate ranges for the functions your plotting. What I mean by this is that you probably don't want the same range for each function, because the ellipse is undefined over most of the range that the parabola is defined. To plot the ellipse using f(x) you could observe that there are + and - values that are identical, using this fact you could plot your ellipse by two functions one to represent the top half and one to represent the bottom half, each of these would pass the vertical line test.
OR
You could utilize ezplot and have a nice time with it because it makes your life easier. Here is a solution.
ezplot('x^2/16+y^2/2-4'); axis equal; hold on
ezplot('-5*x^2+2-y')
There are multiple ways to plot an ellipse, e.g. you could also use a parametric representation of the equation.
In your approach though, when plotting functions using plot(x,y) command, you need to express your dependent variable (y) through independent variable (x). You defined the range for x, which is what you substitute into your equations in order to find y's. While for the parabola, the dependency of y from x is obvious, you forgot to derive such a relationship for the ellipse. In this case it will be +-sqrt((1 - x^2/16)*2). So in your approach, you'll have to take into account both negative and positive y's for the same value of x. Also there's discrepancy in your written equation for the ellipse (=4) and the one in Matlab code (=1).
x = linspace(-5, 5);
y1 = sqrt((1 - x.^2/16)*2);
y2 = -5*x.^2 +2;
figure(1)
plot(x, real(y1), 'r', x, -real(y1), 'r')
hold on
plot(x, y2)
hold off
Since the ellipse has real y's not on the whole x domain, if you want to plot only real parts, specify real(y1) or abs(y1) (even though Matlab does it for you, too). You can also dismiss complex numbers for certain x when computing y1, but you'll need a for-loop for that.
In order to make things simpler, you can check the function fimplicit, ezplot is not recommended according to Matlab's documentation. Or if you want to plot the ellipse in a parametric way, fplot will work, too.
Another (more classic) approach for parametric plotting is given here already, then you don't need any other functions than what you already use. I think it is the simplest and most elegant way to plot an ellipse.
You will not be able to generate points for the ellipse using a function f(x) from a Cartesian linspace range. Instead, you can still use linspace but for the angle in a polar notation, from 0 to 2*pi. You should also be able to easily adjust radius and offset on both axis on the cos and sin expressions.
x = linspace(-5, 5);
y2 = -5*x.^2 +2;
figure(1)
clf;
plot(x, y2)
hold on
a = linspace(0,2*pi);
x2 = 4*cos(a);
y2 = sqrt(2)*sin(a);
plot(x2, y2)
xlim([-5,5]);
ylim([-5,5]);
hold off
