Curve fitting means finding a mathematical function or plot curve that best fits a set of data. By doing so, you can see patterns in a data set, predict future data points, and understand the relationship between different factors.
Mathcad has a number of specialized curve-fitting functions.
A least squares fit is the method most commonly used to find the line that best fits a set of data. “Least squares” refers to the sum of the squares of the distances from the individual data points to the line itself. A least squares fit finds the smallest possible sum, or closest fit.
Mathcad has three built-in functions to fit data to a line: line, slope, and intercept.
Beyond that Mathcad has many built-in curve fitting functions for the most common model functions: exponential, logistic, logarithmic, sinusoidal, and power.
In addition, you can use one of the generalized curve fitting functions to specify your own model function.
Further, you can analyze your data to evaluate the quality of the fit, using other data analysis functions. The goal of all the curve fitting functions is to enable you to best understand your data and to control factors that influence the data.
A beautiful automated plot
Can you give an example.
Hi Chelsea,
I found an example of curve fitting in Mathcad for you on Engineering Resources, powered by Mathcad, PTC’s Mathcad resource center. Here is the example I think will help you the most: http://www.ptc.com/appserver/wcms/resourcecenter/mathcad.jsp?&im_dbkey=131257&icg_dbkey=888&lang=en
If you are looking for other examples you can go to the resource center and sort by discipline or you can enter keywords in the search bar at the top left of the page. http://www.ptc.com/appserver/search/mathcad.jsp? If you can’t find what you’re looking for you can try asking other users on PlanetPTC Community to see if they might have examples too http://communities.ptc.com/community/mathcad
I hope this helps!
Mathcad is going the wrong way… I mean, dramatically. I guess we the users do not have to ask ourselves why we are moving to ANY other software in the marketplace. Maybe ANY of them out there leaves Mathcad looking like the Windows Scientific Calculator.
Hope PTC notices this and make a real full upgrade to 21st century standards. Otherwise, is a waste of time and, last but not least, of money.
Miss the old Mathcad15 days… Prime has been an awful drawback.
From your comments, I take it that you are a long-time Mathcad user. We recognize that PTC Mathcad Prime is a change. This is the platform that we continue to improve with new features coming out in each release. Transition to PTC Mathcad Prime was necessary to bring the 15.0 platform into 21st century.
For users that take longer to upgrade, Mathcad 15.0 continues to be fully supported.
Comparing PTC Mathcad Prime to Windows Scientific Calculator gives me the impression that you are perhaps not aware of the significant computational improvements that the PTC Mathcad Prime has: overhauled and improved unit support that allows unit carrying calculations using virtually any function, as well as mixed unit matrices; native 64 bit support; multi-threading support; upgraded linear algebra functions; upgraded fft and signal processing functions; upgraded solvers; and few others… PTC Mathcad Prime is moving in the direction of enhancing computational capability, and at the same time modernizing UI.
We do listen to our users and welcome feedback — so be specific. You can contact us via e-mail directly (can’t post my e-mail here, but you can guess it) or through tech support.