# Drawing on calculator, Parametric Equation. What does the “pitch” do? Casio

So under options "view window" on my calculator I can't understand what the value under pitch does to the drawing. I'm just drawing simple 2D vectors. This is high school stuff, so it isn't hard. But the pitch part, messes with my head. The book never comes with suggestions for that value but it obviously effects the drawing.

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## 1 Answer

I got a Casio CFX-9850GB, so depending on your model the pitch setting might do slightly different stuff.

For me at least, this setting only affects the drawing of curves of the type $r=r(\theta)$ which you can select in the "Type" menu. It is then the step size of the angle increment while drawing.

If you choose a very small pitch, then the image will be very smooth, but will take longer to draw. In contrast, if you choose a large pitch, then the graph will look like a polygonal line, that is just some dots connected by lines. But the drawing will of course be much faster.

What your calculator does is for a function $r(\theta)$ to calculate $r(0)$, then $r(p)$, then $r(2p)$ and so on, where p is the pitch. It then draws lines from $(0,r(0))$ to $(p,r(p))$, $(p,r(p))$ to $(2p,r(2p))$ and so on, where the pairs are meant as polar coordinates.

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