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Features of Cinderella

This is a (biased) list of facts about Cinderella

Scientific innovation
The mathematics used by Cinderella are a blend of old, almost forgotten geometry, and brand new theory developed in 1998 by the authors. Most features of Cinderella including interactive exercises are based on it.
Principle of Continuity
All geometry software but Cinderella suffers from the problem of "jumping points". While recalculating a construction for different point positions decisions have to be made (e.g. which intersection of two circles is the one the user wants). Cinderella always makes the right one.
Automatic Theorem Proving
Interesting from a mathematicians point of view, but important at unexpected places, too. How do you check reliably whether a student's solution is correct? Here you need a automatic theorem prover which can handle all geometric theorems! Based on continuity and randomized theorem proving Cinderella can do it.
Integration in interactive books
You can integrate Cinderella into your web pages, since Java is built into every standard web browser. An export wizard generates a complete page with a few mouse clicks.
Complete and fast loci
The locus of a point or line under movement of some other element is a very interesting thing to study. Cinderella guarantees to generate the complete and correct locus quickly. This relies heavily on the unique theory used for continuity of elements.
Quality output
Cinderella is designed for todays high-resolution displays and projectors and tries to give the best output on theses devices. Nevertheless, a screen-shot-like, pixelized output is unsuitable for use in publications or even homework assignments. Therefor, Cinderella features high quality, scalable postscript output as well.
More than one Geometry
There is more than Euclidean geometry, but most people haven't heard about other geometries in school. With Cinderella you can visualize and measure in hyperbolic and spherical geometry, and it can be extend to other geometries while still using the same flexible framework.
More than one view
With Cinderella you can have different "views" of the same construction. Manipulations can be done in each of them, and they are all updated synchronously. For example, you can reach points "at infinity" in the spherical view to alter the slope of parallel lines.
Modular design
Different target groups and different curriculae call for different software. Cinderella has a modular design which makes it easy to adapt to the learning environment.
Unlimited Portability
The Java programming language is available for almost all platforms used in schools and universities. Cinderella is written completely in Java and runs on Windows 95/98/NT, Solaris, Linux and other systems.
Different languages
Cinderella recognizes the default language of the operating system and tries to match its messages and other texts as closely as possible. Currently English, German and Swiss-German are supported. Additional languages can be added without changing or recompiling the program.
Applications beyond Mathematics
Geometry is basic to most natural sciences. Almost everytime you use a figure to describe something, you can replace it by an interactive construction with Cinderella. Instead of one figure you get thousands of them! One example for this is optics: the way the light takes through a lens can be described geometrically. When you construct it with Cinderella, you can actually see what happens when you move the object, resize it or change the focus of the lens.
True Virtual Reality
For "true" virtual reality you need more than 3D-imaging and collision detection. If you want to simulate simple things like linked bars you end up with all the continuity problems Cinderella (as the first software ever) solves.

©1997-2002 Jürgen Richter-Gebert & Ulrich Kortenkamp. Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Cinderella is independent of Sun Microsystem, Inc. PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc. All other brand and product names are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective holders. Questions? Mail to webmaster@cinderella.de! Last change: Mon Sep 13 12:54:23 2004