Re: [Axiom-developer] Lisp GUI libraries and a UI for Axiom

[Kai Kaminski]

Bob McElrath <address@hidden> writes:

> As far as drawing graphs, why not just dump out a graph in any kind of
> portable format (e.g. postscript, pdf, svg, etc).  A front-end can parse
> it and display it.  There are many relevant lisp libraries:
>     http://www.cliki.net/graphics%20library
>     http://www.cliki.net/plotting
Because there is a difference between the plot data and the resulting
plot and producing the latter from the former isn't easy. The plot
contains all kinds of objects like grid lines, axis, a title etc. This
implies that we need tons of plotting code inside the core of
Axiom. The plot data that Axiom produces should be an easily parseable
description of the points/lines/surfaces that are to be displayed, as
well as all additional options that the user supplied, like colours,
axis etc.

As for the GUI, different people will prefer different plotters
(layout, output formats, ...).

Kai