Online SVG figures with Haskell

pnyf.inf.elte.hu

56 points·njs12345··10 comments

This reminds me of experiments I did in using Lua to generate SVG. With a little work, I thought it could make a useful replacement format for vector graphics (if anyone would adopt it; not too likely). It was nice to able to use control structures, especially loops and random numbers, to generate images. I definitely think XML is not the best format. Maybe something based on Haskell or some other functional language could work?

If you found that interesting, check out Pov-Ray. It does the same thing with 3D. Doesn't output any kind of vector format (that I know of), but the scenes are all described in a Turing-Complete language like that.

Yes, that's very cool. Thanks.

Pretty! How does it compare with MetaPost's capabilities? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaPost.

This page lists a ton of examples of things possible with Metapost: http://tex.loria.fr/prod-graph/zoonekynd/metapost/metapost.h....

The main purpose of MetaPost is creating figures for books, but this is just an educational tool (in this form).

The site has great interactive tutorials (well in hungarian) if you want to learn some haskell. Check them also! [1]

I learn by that in school, so good you posted I almost forget my homework :)

[1] http://pnyf.inf.elte.hu/fp/Index.xml

Very nice! But am I the only person who thinks that the parameter order on (<|>) is the wrong way? :)

I think they did that because it's like a bind, i.e. circle 5 <|> rect 8 8 puts a <circle> out first then a <rect> so it seems kind of like the IO monad in that it's ordered

Not sure which library they're using, but it could be http://hackage.haskell.org/package/diagrams

Almost; it is http://hackage.haskell.org/package/dia-functions

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