TeX interpreter and rendering in OpenGL based backends

[John W. Eaton]

On 25-Aug-2011, Ole Jacob Hagen wrote:

| Hi,
| 
| The TeX interpreter works with gnuplot as the chosen backend, however it
| doesn't work with OpenGL based backends such as FLTK and Oplot.
| 
| I've been fiddling with the idea to make a TeX interpreter + render-code, and
| I've started to study the SimpleTextEngine class (JHandles).
| Before I eventually decide to make any effort, I'd like to get more 
information
| how the implementation should be.
| 
| I've also read some of the Octave code and found the following files to be
| vital to TeX interpreting: txt-eng.h, txt-eng-ft.<h, cc>.
| I guess txt-eng-ft should implement interpreting and rendering through either
| composition or aggregation (read: "has-a"-relationship).
| txt-eng.h can be expanded to have similar code as found in SimpleTextEngine
| class, I think...
| 
| I suggests that text_parser_tex inherits text_parser, but the rendering code 
is
| done elsewhere. A parser shouldn't perform rendering as I see it.
| This is to create a pure implementation as possible.
| 
| I'm making a small test-application, just to see how it works and try to clear
| out any pitfalls.
| 
| Has anyone started this task already? Does it exist any code on a repository
| that I can check out?

You might consider looking at the implementation of TeX symbol
rendering in Matplotlib.  If I remember correctly, someone actually
implemented the entire TeX math symbol placement algorithm in Python,
and it also has the option of simply calling TeX to do the typesetting
when that is not sufficient.

jwe