Butch Lakeshsore wrote: > Take a look at the .png file I have attached.
The Forum doesn't accept attachments, so it didn't come through. But you can upload files to the Wiki though, and link to them on the Forum. > Feasible? Anybody seen something like this? I'd say this project breaks down into 3 major parts: (A) Parsing PDF (or PNG; your subject line said PDF but the body said *.png) (B) Converting the parsed equation into J (C) Solving/simplifying/expanding the J code (C) is probably the fun part you want to concentrate on. (B) interests me the most. (A) is just hard work and, IMO, error-prone and unneccesary. Regarding (A), did you consider how your intended audience is going to produce the PDF (or PNG) file? I bet they'd have to type some kind of mathematical markup language (e.g. LaTeX or MathML). If that's the case, it might be easier to have them type (a simplied, friendly form of) J in the first place. Or, if you think the graphical, standard, math notation is fundamental to the concept, I'd suggest you give your users a way to enter it (create it graphically). But I don't suggest you re-invent the wheel. For example, all copies of MS office come a graphical equation editor, EQNEDT32.EXE (almost always located at c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\EQUATION\EQNEDT32.EXE ). You can connect to EQNEDT32 from J using OLE (I think). Or, since that's MS-specific, you might want to find a graphical tool that runs on multiple platforms. Maybe OpenOffice.org has a EQNEDT analog. If it does, I bet it has also has the bonus of outputting in some publically standard machine-parsable format (e.g. MathML). I might look into this, when I get time. -Dan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
