Automating xkcd Diagrams: Transforming Serious to Funny

blog.wolfram.com

102 points·soofy··7 comments

Use math and programming to turn serious scientific diagrams into humorous hand-drawn-like sketches. Even online app to try it.

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xkcd-style graphs in your language:

- Mathematica: http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/11350/xkcd-st...

- Matlab: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12701841/xkcd-style-graph...

- R: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12675147/how-can-we-make-...

- TeX: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/74878/create-xkcd-sty...

I've really enjoyed all these questions! Thanks to the original asker. The TeX ones are especially neat because they are a vector graphic, no image distortion involved.

matplotlib: https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/pull/1329

This also links to an interesting article describing how to create an xkcd self referential chart.

http://blog.wolfram.com/2010/09/07/self-description/

I would love to see this in the next CERN ATLAS presentation slides. Someone should ping Fabiola Gianotti ;)

When will wolfram alpha do this for me?

We already have a framework that can do this kind of thing -- see http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=blur+plot+of+sin(x) -- but because of our release schedule, it'll take around 2 weeks for the xkcd code to make it to production.

s/blur/xkcd/

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=xkcd+plot+of+sin(x)

I'll be back in two weeks to click that link :-)

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