Mathematica Drawing Bug

[Listing]

When solving my last Problem on ProjectEuler I tried to plot the solution
with mathematica using:

Code: Select all

Export["MathematicaBug.PDF", 
 Plot3D[{1/4 (-1 + a) a (-1 + b) b, 2000000}, {a, 0, 60}, {b, 0, 60}, 
  PlotStyle -> {{Opacity[1], Yellow}, {Opacity[0.4], Blue}}], "PDF"]

Unfortunately I get the following buggy result:
http://img3.imagebanana.com/img/2onh1zq ... icaBug.jpg

It disappears, if i change the Opacity of the constant function from
Opacity[0.4] to Opacity[1.0], so the bug occurs only when working with opacity,
changing the output formats or anything else won't help.
Without the Opacity it doesn't look really good.

As I write many reports and tutorials I am in need of a good 3d and 2d plotting software
which produces really beautiful plots.

Is there such a solution which costs below 5.000 US$?
It should support Anti-Aliasing ,high resolution Images, opacity and coloring functions.
Or is there a method to make Mathematica plot it?

The bug occurs at both, the Mathematica 6.0 version I have at home and the 7.0 version I can
access at work (will update soon).

Thank you a lot
Listing

[stijn263]

Both Matlab and Maple are able to make 3d plots. But they aren't exactly cheap either..

Maple: http://www.maplesoft.com/products/maple ... ation.aspx