Re: The Principle "Everything is an expression"
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg101277] Re: The Principle "Everything is an expression"
- From: Alexey <lehin.p at gmail.com>
- Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:30:33 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <3227470.1246015000794.JavaMail.root@n11> <h24qo3$rdu$1@smc.vnet.net>
On 27 Jun, 14:02, "David Park" <djmp... at comcast.net> wrote:
> "Everything is an expression" is nice, but a supplemental principle for
> graphics should be: "Everything is a graphics primitive". It is that
> principle that I implemented as a base part of the Presentations package.
> All of the set-piece plot types are replaced by corresponding "Draw"
> statements that can be used directly as graphics primitives and mixed with
> other primitives such as Circle or Text, and also with graphic Directives.
> There are Draw statements for just about every plot type, and there is
> provision for using third party plots. With this paradigm one just draws one
> thing after another. It is much more intuitive and users appreciate it and
> find it easy.
Hello,
I am perfectly agree with the statement that the principle "Everything
is an expression" MUST also mean "Everything is a set graphics
primitives". As I know at this moment this principle fails. It is that
I meant in my first post (but only now I have formulated my thought
clearly).
Why I think this statement is necessary? Let us take a practical
approach to the matter: I want to create custom Export function which
will take Mathematica's Graphics and translate it into code of another
graphics format. For this I need to have the ALL content of
Mathematica's Graphics available as graphics primitives. The options
like "Axes->True" and "Ticks->Automatic" do not give me any practical
information what in really drawn (I only may see it, but can not use
in my program).
The Documentation says:
"FullGraphics generates explicit graphics primitives for objects
specified by options such as Axes, Ticks, etc."
and more:
"FullGraphics[g] should display the same as g, though it may have a
different internal structure."
It is clear that FullGraphics does not do this:
g = Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0.2, 10}]
FullGraphics[g]
Show[FullGraphics[g], AspectRatio -> 1/GoldenRatio]
So, my question remains: how we may get the real expression-
representation of Plot in terms of graphics primitives?