11 ms·

Penrose: Create diagrams by typing mathematical notation in plain text

231 points by espeed 7y ago

nubela 7y ago
Feedback: Improve the syntax? Why not just make it look like code?
- enriquto 7y ago
  it looks like code, what do you mean?
- j88439h84 7y ago
  It looks fine to me.
_emacsomancer_ 7y ago
But can it create Penrose tilings?
- asab 7y ago
  Maybe not, but this can: http://ariasabeti.me/ http://ariasabeti.me/ (scroll down)
espeed 7y ago
This is one of the projects out of Jonathan Aldrich's (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aldrich/ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aldrich/) group at CMU ... "The Penrose team is based at Carnegie Mellon University, comprising Katherine Ye, Nimo Ni, Dor Ma'ayan, Max Krieger, Rain Du, Josh Sunshine, Jonathan Aldrich, and Keenan Crane. (Emeritus: Jenna Wise and Lily Shellhammer.)" http://www.penrose.ink http://www.penrose.ink
pencillr 7y ago
Not the fan of haskell, though I like the fact that it uses react frontend.
- dan-robertson 7y ago
  What does the implementation language have to do with anything? Sure one could complain that the program is slow/buggy but I don’t think that has much to do with whether one likes the implementation language or not. I feel like this is like complaining about tex being written in web or hg being written in python (hg being slow seems a more reasonable complaint). I think with a program, the proof of the pudding is in the eating
  - lifthrasiir 7y ago
    I guess, it would be kinda harder to adapt Haskell to the client-side-only interactive web (but of course, people are trying [1]). Nowadays the availability in the web directly impacts its acceptance so it is not a separate concern. [1] https://wiki.haskell.org/The_JavaScript_Problem#Haskell_-.3E_JS https://wiki.haskell.org/The_JavaScript_Problem#Haskell_-.3E...
    - Retra 7y ago
      That's kind of outweighed by the more relevant fact that the people who had the time and inclination to create the software preferred one set of tools, and the preferences of some after-the-fact passerby would obviously not factor into this kind of decision.
amelius 7y ago
Why do the text labels appear to be not centered in the smaller circles?
- lifthrasiir 7y ago
  Because the style doesn't know about that. Penrose is inherently an interactive constraint solver and you need to supply such implicit assumptions for a visually pleasing result. At the first glance I guess `objective centerLabel(...)` will do.
  - amelius 7y ago
    Interesting. Which constraint solver does it use, or do they use their own one?
    - hypotext 7y ago
      Hi, Katherine here—we've written our own code for numerical optimization (via L-BFGS) and constraint solving (via the exterior point method).
miki123211 7y ago
If people could share the source along with the diagrams they make, this could be huge for accessibility. I can't count how many times I've been blocked from reading some content just because of all the JPGs and SVGs my screen reader couldn't read. Often they were themselves created with GUI programs, so even the authors couldn't help.
- simongr3dal 7y ago
  The source might be nice. Even nicer would be if people bothered to fill out the `alt` and `title` attributes with details about the image as well as the reason for it being there.
  - nerdponx 7y ago
    Do you know of any resources with examples of good "alt" attributes? I (not a web developer) never know what's important to put there, or how much.
    - _randyr 7y ago
      Here's a good short description with further resources for reading: https://github.com/springernature/frontend-playbook/blob/master/accessibility/accessibility-checklist.md#provide-text-alternatives-for-images https://github.com/springernature/frontend-playbook/blob/mas...
    - simongr3dal 7y ago
      I don't think 25-75 words is an unreasonable amount of text for an alt attribute, just try to imagine how you would describe it for a blind person. xkcd sometimes – mainly when there are characters and panels and dialogue – includes a div.transcript element that explains what is on the image. Example: https://xkcd.com/1558/ https://xkcd.com/1558/ Has the following transcript: [[A concerned pet owner at the front of a row of customers in a veterinarian's office. A tired veterinary assistant performs arbitrage. A pet carrier cage, the sort used to contain a small dog or cat, is on a desk for the vet tech to examine.]] Pet owner: There's something wrong with my dog. Pet owner: He keeps crawling around eating dirt. [[The vet tech carefully removes the dog from its carrier and gently examines it.]] Vet tech: This is a roomba. Pet owner: Well, he's a mix. Pet owner: Probaby some roomba in there. [[The vet tech places the roomba on the desk, probably maintaining a weary forced congeniality though we can't see their face.]] Vet tech: A roomba is not a pet. Pet owner: You're right. It's wrong to keep a beautiful creature like this in a house. [[The pet owner, outside, beneath a tall tree. It looks like an ash, or maybe a beech. There aren't any leaves drawn in the frame so I can't be sure.]] Pet owner: Go! Be free! [[The roomba cheerfully speeds towards the tree]] Roomba: WHIRRR {{Title text: It's probably for the best. Since Roombas are native to North America, it's illegal for Americans to keep them in their houses under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.}}
fsiefken 7y ago
It seems this is for mathematical diagrams (X,Y or Venn), am I right? I was wondering if I could make flowcharts, mindmaps or uml diagrams with it. Mermaid.js is nice but limited.
- waynenilsen 7y ago
  See graphviz
  - no-such-address 7y ago
    Yes, there is so much potential to integrate diagramming and recent work on constraint solvers including SAT solvers, but also very difficult to make such systems usable and convenient. There is a lot of hackery in graphviz that seems difficult to recreate in a general context. It would help if graphviz could be brought up to date or moved to a better environment for doing new work.
- montroser 7y ago
  We've been using Plectica[1] for this type of stuff and finding it to be downright awesome. [1]: https://plectica.com https://plectica.com
- elviejo 7y ago
  for UML diagrams written in text and then displayed as graphs I love http://plantuml.com/ http://plantuml.com/
taliesinb 7y ago
i’m having trouble finding a gallery of examples that give a sense of the range of different diagrams Penrose can create. anyone know if there is such a thing?
- anchpop 7y ago
  I expect that there will be more examples once the project is deemed to be ready for public use
- JdeBP 7y ago
  There are two sets of slideshows on the main WWW site.
stevekrouse 7y ago
Happy to see this on HN! I interviewed Katherine on my podcast a few months ago about this https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/034.html https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/034.html
8note 7y ago
it's called Penrose, but there's no example of a Penrose diagram?
- miles7 7y ago
  I use Penrose diagrams all the time for my research and was hoping to see exactly this. I'm thinking of contacting the developers and participating in their survey...
MockObject 7y ago
Lovely project, but "Penrose" is not the best name possible. There will be confusion between diagrams made with Penrose (Penrose diagrams?), and Penrose diagrams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_diagram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_diagram

231 points by espeed 7y ago

nubela 7y ago

Feedback: Improve the syntax? Why not just make it look like code?

enriquto 7y ago
it looks like code, what do you mean?
j88439h84 7y ago
It looks fine to me.

_emacsomancer_ 7y ago

But can it create Penrose tilings?

asab 7y ago
Maybe not, but this can: http://ariasabeti.me/ http://ariasabeti.me/ (scroll down)

espeed 7y ago

This is one of the projects out of Jonathan Aldrich's (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aldrich/ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aldrich/) group at CMU ... "The Penrose team is based at Carnegie Mellon University, comprising Katherine Ye, Nimo Ni, Dor Ma'ayan, Max Krieger, Rain Du, Josh Sunshine, Jonathan Aldrich, and Keenan Crane. (Emeritus: Jenna Wise and Lily Shellhammer.)" http://www.penrose.ink http://www.penrose.ink

pencillr 7y ago

Not the fan of haskell, though I like the fact that it uses react frontend.

dan-robertson 7y ago
What does the implementation language have to do with anything? Sure one could complain that the program is slow/buggy but I don’t think that has much to do with whether one likes the implementation language or not. I feel like this is like complaining about tex being written in web or hg being written in python (hg being slow seems a more reasonable complaint). I think with a program, the proof of the pudding is in the eating
- lifthrasiir 7y ago
  I guess, it would be kinda harder to adapt Haskell to the client-side-only interactive web (but of course, people are trying [1]). Nowadays the availability in the web directly impacts its acceptance so it is not a separate concern. [1] https://wiki.haskell.org/The_JavaScript_Problem#Haskell_-.3E_JS https://wiki.haskell.org/The_JavaScript_Problem#Haskell_-.3E...
  - Retra 7y ago
    That's kind of outweighed by the more relevant fact that the people who had the time and inclination to create the software preferred one set of tools, and the preferences of some after-the-fact passerby would obviously not factor into this kind of decision.

amelius 7y ago

Why do the text labels appear to be not centered in the smaller circles?

lifthrasiir 7y ago
Because the style doesn't know about that. Penrose is inherently an interactive constraint solver and you need to supply such implicit assumptions for a visually pleasing result. At the first glance I guess `objective centerLabel(...)` will do.
- amelius 7y ago
  Interesting. Which constraint solver does it use, or do they use their own one?
  - hypotext 7y ago
    Hi, Katherine here—we've written our own code for numerical optimization (via L-BFGS) and constraint solving (via the exterior point method).

miki123211 7y ago

If people could share the source along with the diagrams they make, this could be huge for accessibility. I can't count how many times I've been blocked from reading some content just because of all the JPGs and SVGs my screen reader couldn't read. Often they were themselves created with GUI programs, so even the authors couldn't help.

simongr3dal 7y ago
The source might be nice. Even nicer would be if people bothered to fill out the `alt` and `title` attributes with details about the image as well as the reason for it being there.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  Do you know of any resources with examples of good "alt" attributes? I (not a web developer) never know what's important to put there, or how much.
  - _randyr 7y ago
    Here's a good short description with further resources for reading: https://github.com/springernature/frontend-playbook/blob/master/accessibility/accessibility-checklist.md#provide-text-alternatives-for-images https://github.com/springernature/frontend-playbook/blob/mas...
  - simongr3dal 7y ago
    I don't think 25-75 words is an unreasonable amount of text for an alt attribute, just try to imagine how you would describe it for a blind person. xkcd sometimes – mainly when there are characters and panels and dialogue – includes a div.transcript element that explains what is on the image. Example: https://xkcd.com/1558/ https://xkcd.com/1558/ Has the following transcript: [[A concerned pet owner at the front of a row of customers in a veterinarian's office. A tired veterinary assistant performs arbitrage. A pet carrier cage, the sort used to contain a small dog or cat, is on a desk for the vet tech to examine.]] Pet owner: There's something wrong with my dog. Pet owner: He keeps crawling around eating dirt. [[The vet tech carefully removes the dog from its carrier and gently examines it.]] Vet tech: This is a roomba. Pet owner: Well, he's a mix. Pet owner: Probaby some roomba in there. [[The vet tech places the roomba on the desk, probably maintaining a weary forced congeniality though we can't see their face.]] Vet tech: A roomba is not a pet. Pet owner: You're right. It's wrong to keep a beautiful creature like this in a house. [[The pet owner, outside, beneath a tall tree. It looks like an ash, or maybe a beech. There aren't any leaves drawn in the frame so I can't be sure.]] Pet owner: Go! Be free! [[The roomba cheerfully speeds towards the tree]] Roomba: WHIRRR {{Title text: It's probably for the best. Since Roombas are native to North America, it's illegal for Americans to keep them in their houses under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.}}

fsiefken 7y ago

It seems this is for mathematical diagrams (X,Y or Venn), am I right? I was wondering if I could make flowcharts, mindmaps or uml diagrams with it. Mermaid.js is nice but limited.

waynenilsen 7y ago
See graphviz
- no-such-address 7y ago
  Yes, there is so much potential to integrate diagramming and recent work on constraint solvers including SAT solvers, but also very difficult to make such systems usable and convenient. There is a lot of hackery in graphviz that seems difficult to recreate in a general context. It would help if graphviz could be brought up to date or moved to a better environment for doing new work.
montroser 7y ago
We've been using Plectica[1] for this type of stuff and finding it to be downright awesome. [1]: https://plectica.com https://plectica.com
elviejo 7y ago
for UML diagrams written in text and then displayed as graphs I love http://plantuml.com/ http://plantuml.com/

taliesinb 7y ago

i’m having trouble finding a gallery of examples that give a sense of the range of different diagrams Penrose can create. anyone know if there is such a thing?

anchpop 7y ago
I expect that there will be more examples once the project is deemed to be ready for public use
JdeBP 7y ago
There are two sets of slideshows on the main WWW site.

stevekrouse 7y ago

Happy to see this on HN! I interviewed Katherine on my podcast a few months ago about this https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/034.html https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/034.html

8note 7y ago

it's called Penrose, but there's no example of a Penrose diagram?

miles7 7y ago
I use Penrose diagrams all the time for my research and was hoping to see exactly this. I'm thinking of contacting the developers and participating in their survey...

MockObject 7y ago

Lovely project, but "Penrose" is not the best name possible. There will be confusion between diagrams made with Penrose (Penrose diagrams?), and Penrose diagrams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_diagram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_diagram