Tex - pgf vs. metapost

Author

pgf vs. metapost

Will Robertson

2006-02-23, 3:58 am

Hello,

As one who has only just started dabbling in programmatic picture
environments, I was very dismayed to (start to) read the users manual
to PGF and find that it seems excellent. Why dismayed? Well, I'd sort
of decided to do my stuff in MetaPost. But now I'm re-considering.

My initial thoughts seem to be:
- PGF is even more integrated with respect to typesetting matching
text that MP
- PGF is more integrated in the compilation process
- Both handle plotting graphs from external data files

Would anyone like to offer any thoughts on the merits of MetaPost over
pgf (ConTeXt's support comes to mind, although I'm not a ConTeXt user,
for now), or pgf's long term stability?

Best regards,

Will

Daniel Oehry

2006-02-23, 3:58 am

Will Robertson wrote:

> Hello,
>
> As one who has only just started dabbling in programmatic picture
> environments, I was very dismayed to (start to) read the users manual
> to PGF and find that it seems excellent. Why dismayed? Well, I'd sort
> of decided to do my stuff in MetaPost. But now I'm re-considering.
>
> My initial thoughts seem to be:
> - PGF is even more integrated with respect to typesetting matching
> text that MP
> - PGF is more integrated in the compilation process
> - Both handle plotting graphs from external data files
>
> Would anyone like to offer any thoughts on the merits of MetaPost over
> pgf (ConTeXt's support comes to mind, although I'm not a ConTeXt user,
> for now), or pgf's long term stability?

I am using both: metapost and TikZ/PGF. There are a lot of things which can
be done in a very simple way in TikZ, but it is missing some capabalities.

Some examples:
- With metapost you can calculate the intersection point of two arbitraray
paths.

- With metapost you can calculate the unitvector of a path at any point.

- At the moment TikZ cannot draw arbitrary angles (only integers are
allowed).

Daniel

Franck Pastor

2006-02-23, 3:58 am

Le 2006-02-23 07:12:29 +0100, "Will Robertson" <wspr81@gmail.com> dit :

> Hello,
>
> As one who has only just started dabbling in programmatic picture
> environments, I was very dismayed to (start to) read the users manual
> to PGF and find that it seems excellent. Why dismayed? Well, I'd sort
> of decided to do my stuff in MetaPost. But now I'm re-considering.
>
> My initial thoughts seem to be:
> - PGF is even more integrated with respect to typesetting matching
> text that MP
> - PGF is more integrated in the compilation process
> - Both handle plotting graphs from external data files
>
> Would anyone like to offer any thoughts on the merits of MetaPost over
> pgf (ConTeXt's support comes to mind, although I'm not a ConTeXt user,
> for now), or pgf's long term stability?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Will

I'm using Metapost via the package mfpic most of the time. PGF seems to
be very good, indeed, but it lacks an essential feature (for me) : it's
unable to compute itself the control points of a Bézier curve.

Will Robertson

2006-02-23, 9:58 pm

Hi Franck and Daniel,

Cheers for the info. Looks like I'll end up using both :)

Thanks,

Will

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