Re: [matplotlib-devel] doing tex support the right way

[Robert K. <rob...@gm...>]

Darren Dale wrote:
> I would like to ask for some advice from those out there who have experience 
> dealing with fonts and text layout.
> 
> At the end of this message is the output of dvitype, which translates a dvi 
> file (in this case a file typesetting "0.8" in ptmr7t fonts) into human 
> readable output. I have considered writing a dvi parser for mpl, intending to 
> extract the information necessary to render text with mpl's existing font and 
> text support. There is some more information at 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVI_(TeX) and 
> http://www.math.umd.edu/~asnowden/comp-cont/dvi.html#setchar.
> 
> Is this worth pursuing? If I could make it work, mpl's only external 
> dependency would be TeX/LaTeX, even dvipng would not be required.

Quite probably. dvitype is new to me. Doing a DVI interpreter for mpl and Chaco
has been on my list of things to look at for some time. The things stopping me
(besides the density of the DVI standard) was that all of the readable code I
found for interpreting DVI files has been GPLed.

You will need to access the parameters defined in the TeX Font Metric files, I
think. I recommend using tftopl(1) to convert them to a parseable form.

-- 
Robert Kern
rob...@gm...

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
 Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
  -- Richard Harter