🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep7.111418.1@ducvax.auburn.edu>
 hank@ducvax.auburn.edu writes:

>Caveat: I've only played with this.  PicTeX can take data-points and plot.
>PicTeX can require considerable TeX-memory. Since you use emTeX, you can
>use tex386 beta-8 and get good performance if you have a 386. If you use
>btex186 or btexp, be prepared to wait.

Hank's suggestions are good, and I'd like to add another, which is
faster and uses much less TeX memory than PicTeX.

Mfpic by Thomas Leathrum (moth@dartmouth.edu) interpolates data points
with either straight lines or with cubic Beziers (your choice).

Other features include rotated ellipses, arrows, curved arrows, dotted
lines, shaded regions, parametric functions, captions and labels.

Sample files illustrate the production of bar graphs, pie charts,
commutative diagrams, and X-Y graphs.

How does it do it?  Mfpic is an interface between TeX and MetaFont, so
if you have a copy of the MetaFont program (which is included with
Unix TeX and emTeX), then you can use mfpic, because no knowledge of
MetaFont is required.

Mfpic stores its pictures in MF font sources, which MetaFont turns
into TFM and PK files, so you can preview and print on your existing
TeX installation(s).  The PK files are compact (about 10 K for several
pictures).

If you must  :-)  use PostScript, then Rokicki's dvips has a "-Z"
bitmap compression option, which I urge people to use, as it reduces
the PS file's size by ten or twenty fold.

By the way, there are programs such as the free program mf2ps, for
turning MF font sources into PostScript, but I haven't tried this with
mfpic.

If a user of mfpic does know MetaFont, then (s)he can readily extend
mfpic.

Mfpic version 0.2 is due for release very soon.  Look for it on
comp.text.tex.


Geoffrey Tobin