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asy-faq: Question 1
ASYMPTOTE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
22 Mar 2017
This is the list of Frequently Asked Questions about Asymptote (asy).
Index
· Section 1 About Asymptote
· Section 2 Questions about installation and setup
· Section 3 Questions about paths
· Section 4 Questions about labels
· Section 5 Questions about arrows
· Section 6 Questions about 2D graphs
· Section 7 Questions about programming
· Section 8 Questions about differences between Asymptote and
MetaPost
· Section 9 Questions about output
Section 1, About Asymptote
· Question 1.1 What is Asymptote?
· Question 1.2 How do I obtain Asymptote?
· Question 1.3 Where can I ask questions about Asymptote?
· Question 1.4 Why was the name Asymptote chosen?
· Question 1.5 In the internal Asymptote source code, what does the
name camp refer to?
Section 2, Questions about installation and setup
· Question 2.1 Is it possible to install Asymptote on Mac OS X?
· Question 2.2 Why do I get the error Bad CPU type in executable on
installing Asymptote from the MAC OS binary?
· Question 2.3 What do I do if I get the error: Error: pdfetex (file
pdftex.cfg): cannot open config file...texinfo.tex
appears to be broken?
· Question 2.4 What do I do if I get the error: ! Undefined control
sequence. l.6 @copying?
· Question 2.5 Is it possible to integrate Asymptote into LaTeX?
· Question 2.6 Is it possible to integrate Asymptote into latex or
pdflatex?
· Question 2.7 Do I need the tkinter package to install an Asymptote
rpm binary?
· Question 2.8 What does the path %USERPROFILE%\.asy\config.asy mean?
· Question 2.9 Why do I get the error "string not terminated" when I
try to set settings.dir="C:\asymptote\";?
· Question 2.10 How do I change environment variables in Microsoft
Windows, for example, in order to change the default
PostScript viewer?
· Question 2.11 Under Microsoft Windows XP, why do I get an error like
"Invalid Parameter - 432x432"?
· Question 2.12 Why does Asymptote freeze upon trying to draw a label
with my MikTex installation under Microsoft Windows?
Section 3, Questions about paths
· Question 3.1 Why do I get a syntax error message when I specify an
integer value for the path tension?
· Question 3.2 Shouldn't dots always be the same size?
Section 4, Questions about labels
· Question 4.1 How do I get Greek letters like omega to show up in my
labels?
· Question 4.2 Can Asymptote use matrices as labels?
· Question 4.3 How do I tell Asymptote to load a particular LaTeX
package, like mathptmx?
· Question 4.4 How can I use international fonts in Asymptote labels?
· Question 4.5 How can I use Fourier fonts?
· Question 4.6 Is there any way to change the default appearance of
the decimal separator, using a comma instead of a dot?
· Question 4.7 How can I get a rotated label with the filled box
rotated as well so that it fits the text?
· Question 4.8 How can I rotate labels in a 3D figure?
· Question 4.9 How can I draw some squares and circles of a fixed
size and put a label in the middle of them?
· Question 4.10 The binary operator * can be used to scale the color
of a pen by a real number. Does this scaling factor
have to be less than 1?
· Question 4.11 Why is the space after the comma decimal separator in
my locale so large?
· Question 4.12 How can I prevent
texpreamble("\usepackage[pdftex]{hyperref}") from
changing the page size?
Section 5, Questions about arrows
· Question 5.1 How do I draw two arrows at arbitrary positions along
a path?
· Question 5.2 How do I reverse the direction of an arrowhead?
· Question 5.3 How do I change the size of all arrows?
· Question 5.4 Can I create other arrowhead styles?
Section 6, Questions about 2D graphs
· Question 6.1 How can I draw x axis ticks on the right side, with
the tick labels on the left side (relative to the axis
path)?
· Question 6.2 How can I reposition the x axis label to
three-quarters along the axis length?
· Question 6.3 How can I move the x axis label down 10bp?
· Question 6.4 Can I use different pens for the axis, the axis label,
and the tick labels?
· Question 6.5 How can I change the font type of the axes label?
· Question 6.6 How can I change the font type of the tick labels on
an axis?
· Question 6.7 How can I prevent axes tick labels from rendering on
top of each other?
· Question 6.8 How do I make the plot region of a graph, ignoring
labels and legends, have a fixed size?
· Question 6.9 How can I plot a function f(x) within [0,1]x[0,2]
without explicitly calculating the x values for which
f(x) hits the boundary?
· Question 6.10 Is it possible to define customized palettes?
· Question 6.11 Is there an easy way to graph factorial functions
nicely?
· Question 6.12 How do I indicate that a certain length should be
exactly the size I prescribe with no rescaling, within
a picture which has its own size?
· Question 6.13 How can I make the y axis display base-2 logarithmic
values?
· Question 6.14 How can I align the x axes of two graphs on the same
figure?
· Question 6.15 How can I change the direction of the y-axis, such
that negatives values are on the upper y-axis?
· Question 6.16 How can I fill a path with a function that defines the
color of each location?
· Question 6.17 Is there a way to draw a function that is not
explicitly given, such as (y - 2)^2 = x - 1 ?
· Question 6.18 Is it possible to reverse or stretch an axis?
· Question 6.19 Why can't I use the UnFill option to draw graphs with
empty markers?
· Question 6.20 How can I force several images to use the same palette
range (e.g. the entire 0-255 grayscale range)?
Section 7, Questions about programming
· Question 7.1 Is Asymptote an interpreter or a compiler?
· Question 7.2 What is the difference between a frame and a picture?
· Question 7.3 What is the difference between a path and a guide?
· Question 7.4 What is a convenient way to declare and initialize an
array of pictures?
· Question 7.5 Is there a way to define functions that act on arrays
in general (i.e. work for arrays of any type)?
· Question 7.6 Is there any way to declare structures ahead of their
definition, e.g. where struct A performs some
operation on struct B, but B contains an A member?
· Question 7.7 Where are static variables in for loops allocated?
· Question 7.8 Is there a debugger for asy?
· Question 7.9 Do you accept patches for Asymptote?
Section 8, Questions about differences between Asymptote and
MetaPost
· Question 8.1 What is the equivalent of the MetaPost c[a,b]
interpolation operator?
· Question 8.2 How does picture scaling differ in Asymptote and
MetaPost?
· Question 8.3 How can I avoid automatic scaling of a picture?
· Question 8.4 What is the equivalent of MetaPost ... command?
· Question 8.5 What is the equivalent of the MetaPost pickup command?
· Question 8.6 What is the equivalent of the MetaPost whatever
command?
· Question 8.7 What is the equivalent for the MetaPost command for
lray - horiz*v - verti*u = whatever*(LightSource - R),
a system of three linear equations for three unknowns:
horiz, verti, whatever?
· Question 8.8 In MetaPost, it is possible to have a drawing remain
the same size in different pictures by defining a unit
u and explicitly multiply all the coordinates by u. Is
there a better way to do this in Asymptote?
· Question 8.9 In MetaPost, one could produce tiling pictures by
generating a picture, and then clipping the picture to
a rectangle of fixed dimensions around the center of
the picture. How is that done in Asymptote?
Section 9, Questions about output
· Question 9.1 How can I disable automatic invocation of the PS
viewer after an asy file is done processing?
· Question 9.2 How do I output jpeg images?
· Question 9.3 Can I embed bitmaps (photos) into my drawings and
position and scale them?
· Question 9.4 Does Asymptote support direct PDF output?
· Question 9.5 How to I produce large pictures of high quality in
raster format (e.g. png, giff etc).
· Question 9.6 Is it possible to produce multi-page documents with
asymptote?