thanks for the link - i didn't stumble over it while using the search to check if someone had a smilar problem. however, i don't have the problem described there. when i do what he/she descirbed i get 1.5000 it's just the labels on graphs that are botched which remains a mystery...

it's definitely a point i can start from, thank you for the help :) but may i ask why my function is displayed incorrectly when i add coords=cylindrical? i mean those are cylindrical coordinates I'm using, but the best option is no option.

however a further question rises: the function i want to plot is very peaked in some regions and I'm also interested in less pronounced features when i look directly on the (r,phi) plane. so now i'm playing with the contourplot command.. is there a way to somehow lower the threshold so that say all values beyond 10 will be white and the scale from 0 to 10 is only coded in colors?

thx, you're totally right... the logplot command works fine producing exponential notation on the axis in distanances of one decade. i just tired this real quick at home in the morning where I have maple 11. here at my institute we just have the obsolete 8th version and i still have the problem as described when i use the logplot command. i just didn't realize it's a version issue that's been fixed in the later releases.