From g.tobin  Wed Dec 20 15:24:29 1995
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Received: (from gt@localhost) by faraday.ee.latrobe.edu.au (8.7.3/8.7.3) id PAA26904; Wed, 20 Dec 1995 15:24:12 +1100 (EST)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 15:24:12 +1100 (EST)
From: Geoff Tobin <g.tobin>
Message-Id: <199512200424.PAA26904@faraday.ee.latrobe.edu.au>
To: chamlin@aip.org
Subject: Re: Figure symbol font
Cc: G.Tobin@ee.latrobe.edu.au
Status: R
Content-Length: 1439

Chris,

MFpic is a collection of TeX macros and MF macros for drawing.  The MF
macros (grafbase.mf) can be used separately.  Most people are more
familiar with TeX than MF, so a TeX interface (mfpic.tex) is provided
for use in plain TeX and LaTeX documents.  When used in this way,
the document writes one or more MF files which input grafbase.mf.
Labels and captions are placed by TeX, but the drawings are by MF.

Shapes include polylines, cubic splines, ellipses, and circular arcs
and sectors.  Arrows can be added to either end of any curve, and
curves can be drawn with dots or dashes.  Any shape may be described
in any combination of polar and rectangular coordinates.  Closed
shapes can be filled with black, white, dots, or hatching.

All expressions and functions that Metafont can describe, can be
plotted.  Rectangular, polar and parametric forms are supported.

The underlying rectangular coordinate system can be rotated, scaled,
translated, slanted, or reflected.  It can also be nested, to allow
local coordinate systems, as may be convenient for describing compound
objects.

MFpic code is compact, and easy to read.

The main drawback of MFpic relative to PostScript based drawing macro
packages is that the text is not transformable, since it is typeset by
TeX and there is no post-processing.  On the other hand, the absence
of specials, and the use of Metafont, make MFpic very portable.

Best wishes!
Geoffrey Tobin