MimeTexPreview

FF 2007-05-13 I remember some people asked about displaying mathematical formula in Tcl. Some implemented typesetting-like systems in pure Tcl. Cause I don't like re-inventing the wheel I preferred using a well known working system, based on a well known typesetting language: TeX (more precisely, the math extensions).

Btw the TeX distribution can be quite huge, and sometimes troublesome to install on non-UNIX-like systems (see Windows).

Fortunately a nice small application here comes in help: mimetex.

mimetex is mainly used in the CGI form, e.g. wikis and forums, to display mathematical formulae (see Wikipedia for a live example). Anyway it can be compiled as a standalone executable, producing nice GIF (anti-aliased, if you want it) output.

The script below it is just an example on how to embed it for using into a canvas.

I addressed several problems, like working with live iostreams, base64 encoding, and without producing intermediate temporary files. Feel free to improve it (and post it here) if you like.

See also: Rendering mathematical formulae for an alternative example, not using TeX at all.

 #!/bin/sh
 # This line continues for Tcl, but is a single line for 'sh' \
 exec tclsh "$0" ${1+"$@"}
 
 package require base64
 
 set img {}
 #set mimetex_bin "c:/mimetex/mt.exe"
 set mimetex_bin "mimetex"
 
 proc render e {
     global img
     .c delete eee
     catch {image delete $img}
     set p [open [list |$::mimetex_bin -d $e] r]
     fconfigure $p -translation binary -encoding binary
     set rawData [base64::encode [read $p]]
     close $p
     set img [image create photo -data $rawData]
     .c create image 10 10 -image $img -tags eee -anchor nw
 }
 
 grid [canvas .c] -row 0 -columnspan 2 -sticky news
 grid [entry .t -textvariable ee] -row 1 -column 0 -sticky we
 grid [button .b -command {render $ee} -text Render] -row 1 -column 1
 grid columnconfigure . 0 -weight 1
 grid rowconfigure . 0 -weight 1
 set ee "x_{1,2}=\\frac{-b \\pm \\sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}"

EKB This is really nifty. I've got two friendly amendments:

I pulled out the pure rendering code into its own namespace (expression -> img) to make it more reusable
I created a "save" proc + button so that if you like the image you can save it to a file

I was working on Windows, so I assume that the #! lines work, but I wasn't testing them.

 #!/bin/sh
 # This line continues for Tcl, but is a single line for 'sh' \
 exec tclsh "$0" ${1+"$@"}
 
 package require base64

 namespace eval mtex {
    # variable bin "c:/mimetex/mt.exe"
    variable bin "mimetex"
 }
 
 proc mtex::mtex2img {e {img {}}} {
     variable bin
     
     set p [open [list |$bin -d $e] r]
     fconfigure $p -translation binary -encoding binary
     set rawData [base64::encode [read $p]]
     close $p
     if {$img eq ""} {
        return [image create photo -data $rawData]
     } else {
        return [image create photo $img -data $rawData]
     }
 }
 
 proc render e {
     global img
     .c delete eee
     catch {image delete $img}
     set img [mtex::mtex2img $e]
     .c create image 10 10 -image $img -tags eee -anchor nw
 }
 
 proc save {} {
     global img
     
     if {![info exists img]} {return}
     
     set fname [tk_getSaveFile -defaultextension ".gif" \
        -filetypes {{{GIF Files} {.gif} }}]
     
     # Cancelled the save
     if {$fname eq ""} {return}
     
     if [catch {$img write $fname -format GIF} err] {
        error "Could not save image: $err"
     }
 }

 grid [canvas .c] -row 0 -columnspan 3 -sticky news
 grid [entry .t -textvariable ee] -row 1 -column 0 -sticky we
 grid [button .b -command {render $ee} -text Render] -row 1 -column 1
 grid [button .s -command {save} -text "Save As"] -row 1 -column 2
 grid columnconfigure . 0 -weight 1
 grid rowconfigure . 0 -weight 1
 set ee "x_{1,2}=\\frac{-b \\pm \\sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}"

Category Mathematics

Category Graphics