[HN Gopher] Asymptote: 2D and 3D TeX-Aware Vector Graphics Language
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Asymptote: 2D and 3D TeX-Aware Vector Graphics Language
Author : smartmic
Score : 63 points
Date : 2023-05-12 16:29 UTC (6 hours ago)
HTML web link (asymptote.sourceforge.io)
TEXT w3m dump (asymptote.sourceforge.io)
| rjrodger wrote:
| This is pretty fun - used it to generate diagrams for my book!
| a_e_k wrote:
| Yep! I used it for all of the diagrams in my chapter (Ch. 31)
| in Ray Tracing Gems 2.
|
| My diagrams were showing lens optics and it was really nice to
| be able to parameterize the main inputs (e.g., focal length,
| sensor distance, object placement, etc.) and then let Asymptote
| derive everything from there.
|
| I could tweak the parameters and have it instantly recalculate
| the diagram until I found something that looked good. All while
| keeping everything placed consistently.
|
| The other thing I did was to start by creating a single master
| diagram that was super messy and cluttered but contained
| _everything_ that I might want. Then I copied that and
| selectively commented out parts, leaving just the elements that
| I wanted to highlight.
|
| I think I'd have gone crazy if I was trying to calculate and
| draw everything to scale manually in Illustrator or something
| like that, while making tweaks across all the figures to keep
| them consistent.
|
| And all was driven from a Makefile, of course.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Is asymptote easier than LaTeX TikZ?
|
| https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/TikZ_package
| arjvik wrote:
| Tikz has a LaTeX-inspired syntax that's hard to understand
| unless you're very competent with LaTeX. You will find yourself
| constantly looking up syntax for things like loops until you're
| used to Tikz.
|
| Asymptote has a C-like syntax that's very easy to understand
| and remember. Essentially the only new thing is the data types
| (i.e. pair, pen) and literals for those types that Asymptote
| introduces.
| aziis98 wrote:
| Yeah, I really like how they do operators. The ".."
| concatenation operator is very nice to use and works well
| even when used in "imperative" code. It's also nice that all
| operators can be overloaded and the default overloads for
| pairs and triples can make constructing 2d and 3d shapes very
| concise.
|
| It's a small language but with very reasonable syntax
| decisions.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| I like it better. I used it for all the diagrams in my latest
| book. I especially like the 3D. (BTW, the tutorial is first
| rate.)
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