From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/31217 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Sanjoy Mahajan Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: \sometxt bodyfontsize in staticMPfigure (2006.09.27 beta) Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 05:38:08 +0100 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: mailing list for ConTeXt users NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1160023124 4889 80.91.229.2 (5 Oct 2006 04:38:44 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 04:38:44 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Thu Oct 05 06:38:43 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl ([131.211.172.88] helo=ronja.ntg.nl) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GVL0G-0000xr-9Z for gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org; Thu, 05 Oct 2006 06:38:37 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7FE2D1FDF9; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 06:38:35 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 25889-03; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 06:38:26 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 47E9E1FDCA; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 06:38:26 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id C84F41FDCA for ; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 06:38:21 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 25825-05-2 for ; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 06:38:12 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from mraos.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk (mraos.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk [131.111.48.8]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with SMTP id 50DCE1FD70 for ; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 06:38:10 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from skye.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk ([131.111.48.158] ident=mail) by mraos.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GVKzp-0004eW-HA; Thu, 05 Oct 2006 05:38:09 +0100 Original-Received: from sanjoy by skye.ra.phy.cam.ac.uk with local (Exim 3.36 #1) id 1GVKzo-0000ox-00; Thu, 05 Oct 2006 05:38:08 +0100 Original-To: mailing list for ConTeXt users In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 04 Oct 2006 19:14:00 EDT." X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl X-BeenThere: ntg-context@ntg.nl X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.7 Precedence: list List-Id: mailing list for ConTeXt users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Errors-To: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:31217 Archived-At: > [1] metaobj is slow. I really hope that sometime in the future, > metapost gets programming abilities of a real language. Maybe > asymptote already does this, but it is too latex oriented. And gets native 3d curves, which asymptote also has. For example, I'd imagine this being a valid path: p := (0,0)--(0,1)--(1,0)--(1,1,1)--(0,0); where the third coordinate is 0 if not specified, so all of metapost's current drawing would still work, but you could move in or out of the piece of paper too. And the default view would be face on but you could change the viewpoint. Not sure if asymptote has that kind of syntax, but it does do tension and curl and splines a la metapost but generalized to 3d paths. I tried to convert asymptote away from its latex origins, and surprisingly I found that latex isn't the main obstacle, and I'd configured most of the latex strings away. The main issue is that asymptote uses PStricks to do lots of the figure transformations. For example, the rotation in the figure below is handled by metapost with a postscript rotation operator: beginfig(1) draw thelabel(btex hello etex, origin) rotated 70; endfig; In asymptote, if I remember right, the hello box is created and then pstricks macros are used to rotate it. But that approach means incorporating the pstricks postscript headers, and makes it complicated to do on-the-fly parsing of the postscript output and to convert it to pdf (what the internal mptopdf can and does do in ConTeXt for metapost's easy postscript). In thinking about this more, I guess I like metapost's declarative syntax (asymptote is purely procedural) including for constructing paths. I wish it had paths (composed of maybe disjoint subpaths) and subpaths (what metapost calls paths now) a la postscript. I wish it had 3d. Featpost is not bad but is a layer built on top of metapost, not so well integrated. I wish metapost had real mathematical functions, not the sarith.mp hack for large numbers. Asymptote for example has bessel functions handy (the authors can easily and do add functions from the GNU math library). Oh and modern color model (and shading) would be good. Then Hans wouldn't have to do magic to get transparency or cmyk. -Sanjoy `Never underestimate the evil of which men of power are capable.' --Bertrand Russell, _War Crimes in Vietnam_, chapter 1.