Asymptote: the Vector Graphics Language

Asymptote

This file documents Asymptote, version 1.18.

http://asymptote.sourceforge.net

Copyright © 2004-6 Andy Hammerlindl, John Bowman, and Tom Prince.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License. On Debian systems, the GPL can be found at /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.

• Description: What is Asymptote?
• Installation: Downloading and installing
• Tutorial: Getting started
• Drawing commands: Four primitive graphics commands
• Programming: The Asymptote vector graphics language
• LaTeX usage: Embedding Asymptote commands within LaTeX
• Base modules: Base modules shipped with Asymptote
• Options: Command line options
• Interactive mode: Typing Asymptote commands interactively
• GUI: Graphical user interface
• PostScript to Asymptote: Asymptote backend to pstoedit
• Help: Where to get help and submit bug reports
• Debugger: Squish those bugs!
• Credits: Contributions and acknowledgments
• Index: General index

--- The Detailed Node Listing ---

Installation

• UNIX binary distributions: Prebuilt UNIX binaries
• MacOS X binary distributions: Prebuilt MacOS X binaries
• Microsoft Windows: Prebuilt Microsoft Windows binary
• Configuring: Configuring Asymptote for your system
• Search paths: Where Asymptote looks for your files
• Compiling from UNIX source: Building Asymptote from scratch
• Editing modes: Convenient emacs and vim modes
• Subversion: Latest development version
• Uninstall: Goodbye, Asymptote!

Drawing commands

• draw: Draw a path on a picture or frame
• fill: Fill a cyclic path on a picture or frame
• clip: Clip a picture or frame to a cyclic path
• label: Label a point on a picture

Programming

• Data types: void, bool, int, real, pair, triple, string
• Guides and paths: Specifying lines and curves
• Pens: Colors, line types, line widths, font sizes
• Transforms: Affine transforms
• Frames and pictures: Canvases for immediate and deferred drawing
• Files: Reading and writing your data
• Structures: Organize your data
• Operators: Arithmetic and logical operators
• Implicit scaling: Avoiding those ugly *s
• Functions: Traditional and high-order functions
• Arrays: Dynamic vectors
• Casts: Implicit and explicit casts
• Import: Importing external Asymptote packages
• Static: Where to allocate your variable?

Operators

• Arithmetic & logical: Basic mathematical operators
• Self & prefix operators: Increment and decrement
• User-defined operators: Overloading operators

Functions

• Default arguments: Default values can appear anywhere
• Named arguments: Assigning function arguments by keyword
• Rest arguments: Functions with a variable number of arguments
• Mathematical functions: Standard libm functions

Base modules

• plain: Default Asymptote base file
• simplex: Linear programming: simplex method
• math: Extend Asymptote's math capabilities
• geometry: Geometry routines
• stats: Statistics routines and histograms
• patterns: Custom fill and draw patterns
• tree: Dynamic binary search tree
• drawtree: Tree drawing module
• feynman: Feynman diagrams
• roundedpath: Round the sharp corners of paths
• slide: Making presentations with Asymptote
• MetaPost: MetaPost compatibility routines
• unicode: Accept unicode (UTF-8) characters
• latin1: Accept ISO 8859-1 characters
• babel: Implement LaTeX babel package
• embed: Embedding movies, sounds, and 3D objects
• annotate: Annotate your PDF files
• CAD: 2D CAD pen and measurement functions (DIN 15)
• graph: 2D linear & logarithmic graphs
• palette: Color density images and palettes
• three: 3D vector graphics
• light: 3D lighting effects
• graph3: 3D linear & logarithmic graphs
• solids: 3D solid geometry package
• featpost3D: Partial port of featpost3d
• flowchart: Flowchart drawing routines
• contour: Contour lines
• slopefield: Slope fields