Increasing the Visibility of Representation for Objects Studying in Descriptive Geometry

Abstract

Increasing the visibility of representation for objects studying in the process of solving basic problems related to descriptive geometry (DG) significantly improves the understanding and perception of the discipline by students. A team of authors representing St. Petersburg Mining University’s DG and Graphics Chair developed their own projects, which are interactive graphics that allow teachers to visualize the solution of some DG course’s problems directly during academic studies. Projects have been created by the Wolfram Mathematica (WM) system tools and divided into 7 sections: points, lines, planes, geometric elements’ mutual position; relative position of a straight line and a second order surface; relative position of a plane and a second order surface; relative position of second order surfaces; mutual position of revolution bodies and polyhedrons; relative position of polyhedrons; a tangent plane to a second-order surface. Difficulties that have arisen in the work, ideas and possibilities for further implementation of proposed principles for using computational WM algorithms when creating and employing these projects in the process of students’ geometric-graphic training are discussed. It is noted that WM allows you manipulate data and observe how the result is changing dynamically, that certainly makes it possible and is an advantage of WM for using it in students’ geometric-graphic teaching. Lecturers of DG and Graphics Chairs can: use the proposed in this work projects aimed at implement various graphic constructions for both preparation of academic studies and in real-time mode during them; create elements of information supply for the educational process; develop demonstration support for academic studies, that in turn will ensure the proper material assimilation by students.