05-01-2009 11:36
Not really a scripting tip, but a lot of mathematicians lurk in this forum so thought this was the best place to "advertise" for feedback.

I am developing a simple tool for rendering LaTeX equations in SL, which I plan to make freely available. At the moment, because I'm in need of something functional, I have built a viewer that is using mimetex (http://www.forkosh.com/mimetex.html) since it's easy to implement and I'm using a server without LaTeX installed (although that's not a problem for future builds). The downside is the rendering is not brilliant, but it's certainly better than nothing!

I have a prototype at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Warwick%20University%20Maths/71/20/25 which is set up to test, or to take free copies of.

You can enter equations either by pressing the "SLaTeX" button and following the instructions, or it can listen to public chat for anything that's bookended by a "\[" and "\]" (people familiar with LaTeX will realise how natural this is). E.g. saying

"I think the equation \[ f(x)=\int_{-\infty}^x e^{-t^2}dt \] is very interesting!"

Would render the equation f(x)=\int_{-\infty}^x e^{-t^2}dt on the screen.

Pressing the "i" button will give more detailed instructions.

It is very much a work in progress, and I would appreciate any and all feedback!


PS I know listening on channel 0 can cause lag.. this feature can be disabled by a press of a button!