Curve sketching
In geometry, curve sketching (or curve tracing) are techniques for producing a rough idea of overall shape of a plane curve given its equation, without computing the large numbers of points required for a detailed plot. It is an application of the theory of curves to find their main features. Basic techniques. The following are usually easy to carry out and give important clues as to the shape of a curve: Newton's diagram. Newton's diagram (also known as "Newton's parallelogram", after Isaac Newton) is a technique for determining the shape of an algebraic curve close  to and far away from the origin. It consists of plotting (α, β) for each term "Ax""y" in the equation of the curve. The resulting diagram is then analyzed to produce information about the curve. Specifically, draw a diagonal line connecting two points on the diagram so that every other point is either on or to the right and above it. There is at least one such line if the curve passes through the origin. Let the equation of the line be "q"α+"p"β="r". Suppose the curve is approximated by "y"="Cx" near the origin. Then the term "Ax""y" is approximately "Dx . The exponent is r/q" when (α, β) is on the line and higher when it is above and to the right. Therefore, the significant terms near the origin under this assumption are only those lying on the line and the others may be ignored; it produces a simple approximate equation for the curve. There may be several such diagonal lines, each corresponding to one or more branches of the curve, and the approximate equations of the branches may be found by applying this method to each line in turn. For example, the folium of Descartes is defined by the  equation Then Newton's diagram has points at (3, 0), (1, 1), and (0, 3). Two diagonal lines may be drawn as described above, 2α+β=3 and α+2β=3. These produce as approximate equations for the horizontal and vertical branches of the curve where they cross at the origin. The analytical triangle. De Gua extended Newton's diagram to form a technique called the analytical triangle (or "de Gua's triangle"). The points (α, β) are plotted as with Newton's diagram method but the line α+β="n", where "n" is the degree of the curve, is added to form a triangle which  contains the diagram. This method considers all lines which bound the smallest convex polygon which contains the plotted points (see convex hull).