Plotter

The graphic answer type aims to allow questions with an answer requiring the student to draw something on a canvas instead of selecting an option or writing an algebraic expression. With this feature, students will be able to draw points, lines, circles, conic sections, and more, and the new evaluation criteria will do the rest! You need to select the Plotter answer type for drawing answers involving geometric content.

Graphic answer type

When the Plotter option is selected, the drawing tool replaces the equation editor. Using the upper toolbar, you may readily draw the correct answer to the question. Bear in mind students will use the same toolbar (or a reduced version) to answer the question. They will also be able to use handwriting to do so, for which you can see more details here.Graph

Graph with a circumference drawn through the corresponding option in its toolbar

It's also possible to include initial content for the students. It can be beneficial when, for instance, we want them to indicate some elements of a given object.

Definition of initial content for the plotter answer type

As a brand new option of WirisQuizzes, it's also possible to import information from the initial content to the correct answer or vice-versa. Thus, you can build the corresponding graph once, and it will appear automatically on the correct answer, ready to be edited.

Input options

In the Input options screen, you can control how the toolbar provided to the students is displayed, the offered auxiliary input, and several other options.

Customize toolbar

Sometimes, we may not provide the student with all the graph resources. In the Customize toolbar section, you can define which will be shown in the student's graph by simply checking or unchecking the corresponding box. They are all selected by default.

The graph resources are divided into five sections explained below: toolbar, menu, floating, contextual (elements), and contextual (labels).

Toolbar

The Toolbar is at the core of many of the graph's possibilities. You can hide some icons to facilitate the research of those the students need or make the problem's resolution a little bit more complicated.

Element	Description	Icon
Select	To select objects and see their algebraic expression and modify their properties.
Handwriting	To handwrite any of the existing objects. See how here.
Point	To draw a single point.
Lines	Line: To draw a line passing through two given points.
	Segment: To draw a segment between two given points.
	Ray: To draw a ray given a starting point and a direction.
	Midpoint of a segment: To draw the midpoint of a segment.
	Mediatrix of a segment: To draw the mediatrix line of a segment.
	Parallel line: To draw the perpendicular line given a starting point and the initial line.
	Perpendicular line: To draw the perpendicular line given a starting point and the initial line.
	Vector: To draw a vector given a starting point and a direction.
	Parallelogram: To draw a parallelogram given a starting point and two different directions.
	Polyline: To draw a polyline given an ordered set of points.
	Polygon: To draw a polygon given a closed ordered set of points.
Conic sections	Circle by centre and point: To draw a circle given its centre and a belonging point.
	Circle by three points: To draw a circle passing through three given points.
	Arc: To draw an arc of circumference.
	Parabola: To draw a parabola given a directrix line and its centre.
	Ellipse: To draw an ellipse given an axis and a belonging point.
	Hyperbola: To draw a hyperbola given.
	Conic: To draw a general conic section given five belonging points.
	Interpolating polynomial: To draw a polynomial passing through a given set of points.
Measures	Area: To fill an enclosed region and calculate its area.
	Angle: To calculate the counterclockwise angle between two given elements.
	Length: To calculate the length of a bounded unidimensional element.
Label	To include any label within the plotter.
Expression	To include the graphic representation of any mathematical expression.
Image	To include an image within the plotter

Element	Description	Icon
Undo	To undo the last performed action.
Redo	To redo the last erased action.
Show hidden elements	To show those elements that were previously hidden.
Delete all	To delete everything drawn in the graph (including the initial content).
Restore	To delete everything drawn in the graph and restore the initial content.
Download	To download the plotter as a square PNG image of the desired size.
Settings	To modify the plotter configuration. See all the available options here.

Floating

The Floating elements are thought to facilitate the students' view of the plotter and make the content creation more comfortable.

Element	Description	Icon
Zoom in	To zoom in the plotter.
Zoom out	To zoom out the plotter.
Anima	To make the elements apparition dynamic. The different objects of the answer will appear one by one in its creation order.
Maximize	To maximize (or minimize) the plotter.

Contextual (elements)

The Contextual (elements) options enable the capability of modifying a plotted object's appearance.

Element	Description	Icon
Fix label	To fix the algebraic expression of the represented object
Line width	To modify the line width of the represented object
Line style	To modify the line style of the represented object
Line colour	To modify the line colour of the represented object
Delete	To delete the represented object
Hide element	To hide an element that may be necessary to build the object, but it's not expected to be displayed.

Contextual (labels)

The Contextual (labels) enable the capability of representing a function by giving its algebraic expression or including any text in the plotter. The labels in grey are only available if we are introducing a mathematical expression.

Element	Description	Icon
Bold	To write text in bold.
Italic	To write text in italics.
Colour	To write text in any of the available colours.
Big fraction	To add a fraction	$frac.png$
Superscript	To add a superscript.
Square root	To add a square root.
Root	To add a generic root.
Number	To add the irrational numbers $π$ or $e$
Functions	To add any of the available functions ( $\sin$ , $\tan$ , $\log$ , …)
Delete	To delete the written text or formulas
Hide element	To hide an element that may be necessary to build the object, but it's not expected to be displayed.

Answer input method

There are several additional properties you may be interested in customizing when creating a graphical answer question. In the Answer input method section, you will be able to configure all the following options.

Auxiliary input

Here, you can choose what kind of additional entry you want to offer to the students.

There are three options:

Display auxiliary CalcMe: You can supply your students with our online calculator while answering the question and set initial content for the calculator if desired. Keep in mind that the calculator can do a lot more than numerical computations!
Display auxiliary text field: You can provide your students with a text editor to make them include the reasoning they have followed to answer the question. For more details, see this page: Auxiliary input.
Don't show auxiliary input: Don't show the additional CalcMe calculator nor the auxiliary text editor in the input field for the student's answer.

Initial content

Here, you can choose whether students can modify the provided initial content or not. If selected, the initial represented objects will be part of the student's answer and it won't be possible to delete them or change their location.

Display settings

Here, you can decide if the student sees the labels' name and value always, never or when they are focused.

Magnetic grid settings

Here, you can decide whether the magnetic grid option is enabled for the student answer field. The available options are Force, Snap or Disabled.

Validation options

The validation options field allows to define us how we want to evaluate the student's answer. This section is divided into two sections, explained below.

Elements

The Elements subsection is thought to select the elements in answer to be evaluated. By default, all the elements will be taken into account, and they will have to match the student's answer to be graded correctly.

On the other hand, it's also possible to distribute the grade among those selected elements if we want to consider partial grading.

Elements section with the conic and the centre selected to be validated by distributing the grade

Criteria

The Criteria subsection is thought to set the amount of error allowed between the student's answer and the correct answer. Moreover, it's also possible to consider some additional properties explained below.

Prohibit superfluous elements in the student answer: There can't be more elements in the student answer than in the correct answer.
Match color: The elements in the student answer must have the same color as in the correct answer.
Match line type: The elements in the student answer must have the same line type as in the correct answer.

Example: Perpendicular line

Imagine creating a question asking to draw, given the line $y = 2 x + 1$ , its perpendicular line through the point $(4, 0)$ . To do so, we have to start defining the initial content. You can use the line icon or introduce its algebraic expression.

Animation showing how to create a line as initial content

Once we have defined the initial content, we must move on to the Correct answer field and define the perpendicular line. To start, you can use the Copy from initial content option.

The correct answer with a given line and its perpendicular line trough a particular point

Then, we need to define which elements we want the students to use to answer. As they have to draw a line, we may be only interested in keeping the line icons and the expression option.

Animation showing how to customize the toolbar in the corresponding example

Finally, we must define the validation properties we want to consider to grade the students' answers correctly. We will only validate the solution if it matches the perpendicular line.

The validation options of the example to only consider the corresponding line

We can preview the question by clicking the Test this question button. Thus, we can verify if it's working as we expected.

Note

We have introduced some new options in the toolbar that may offer a different way to present the question. You can see more details here.

In this section: