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% Preface to Asymptote overview by Jim Hefferon
\chapter*{Preface}
\Asy{} is a language for drawing mathematical figures.
It outputs vector graphics and fits well with \TeX, \LaTeX{}, and friends.
It is great with two-dimensional graphics
but it also sparkles with three dimensions,
including that it
extends to 3D algorithms from \MF{} and \MP{} that are elegant and that
give beautiful curves.
Last year I made a careful set of lecture slides for
Calculus~I and~II, and
I drew the figures with \Asy.
It is wonderfully well-suited to the job.
However, recently I mentioned this success to someone, who later told
me that
they had an online search for \Asy{} and found a technical reference,
a long tutorial, and a gallery with many graphics,
but really no quick overview.
Rather than tackle what was there,
they stuck with what they were using.
Hence this document.
It is short, adopting a few familiar Calculus graphics.
It gives a feel for what you can do with \Asy, without being
too much
(although I believe that the examples use every feature of
\Asy{} that I used for my lectures).
You can work through it in an afternoon.
If you do elect to try \Asy{} then
\href{https://asymptote.sourceforge.io/}{its web site}
has many more advanced resources.
I hope that it is a help.
\medskip\noindent
\textit{Remark:} This is an introduction.
Often I will do something one way, showing one option, when there
are many ways to do it.
For instance, you can include \Asy{} source in your \LaTeX{} document
but here I have the source as standalone files.
Another example is that I will take the \Asy{} files to be in a
\path{asy/} subdirectory,
while of course you can organize your work in many different ways.
Showing only one option is just a question of going shorter.
\medskip
\begin{flushleft}
Jim Hef{}feron \\
University of Vermont \\
2024-May-26
\end{flushleft}
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