Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!beck
From: beck@thekk.cs.cornell.edu (Micah Beck)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Feynman diagrams in LaTeX
Message-ID: <35437@cornell.UUCP>
Date: 22 Dec 89 14:45:51 GMT
References: <300@nbivax.nbi.dk>
Sender: nobody@cornell.UUCP
Reply-To: beck@cs.cornell.edu (Micah Beck)
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY
Lines: 37

In article <300@nbivax.nbi.dk> pmunck@nbivax.nbi.dk (Peter Munck) writes:
>I have produced a lot of Feynman diagrams using the LaTeX figure environment,
>but there a certain types of diagrams that I cannot figure out how to produce.
...
>I'd like to produce a spiral curved in a half arc, or similarly a (sine)wave
>curved in a half arc. The spirals and waves are easy to produce along a straight
>line, but if you want to curve them it's really something else.


Sounds like a good solution would allow you to:

	1) Write a program which generate the curves in your Feynman
		diagrams in some farily general intermediate form.

	2) Allow you to edit this intermediate form, perhaps adding text
		or other annotations.

	3) Translate this intermediate form into LaTeX picture environment,
		PostScript, or some other LaTeX-compatible format.

I suggest you try using Fig code.  It can be generated from a program,
can be edited using the Fig graphics editor, and can be translated into
LaTeX picture environment, PostScript, (E)EPIC, PicTeX, and PIC
using the TransFig backend translation package.

The syntax and meaning of Fig code is specified fairly precisely in
the TransFig manual, which is included in the distribution.  Fig code syntax
is unfortunately very ugly, consisting almost entirely of numbers.
However, at least one graphics program, namely the GnuTeX numerical plotting
package, successfully produces editable Fig code.

TransFig is avialable via anonymous FTP from svax.cs.cornell.edu
in ~ftp/pub/fig/transfig.tar.Z, or by mail from the archive server
at sun.soe.clarkson.edu.

Micah Beck		beck@cs.cornell.edu
Cornell CS Dept.