[metapost] generic TeX interface?

[Stephan Hennig]

Taco Hoekwater schrieb:
>> Taco Hoekwater schrieb:
>> 
>>>Stephan Hennig wrote:
>>>
>>>* The 4096 limit will go away when we switch to 64-bit calculus
>>>   (planned for 1.1)
>> 
>> What will be the new limit?  (With ten fingers and two digits in mind I
> 
> Most likely is 2^28 (268.435.456 in decimal)

Currently, when it comes to calculating areas, 181 is the largest number
that can be squared (with 15 digits intermediate precision).

beginfig(1);
  n := 182;
  s := (n**2)/16;
  show n, s;
endfig;
end

This situation occurs when trying to keep differently shaped figures
equally sized wrt to their area.  Since 181 bp = 2.5 in = 6.3 cm that's
not impressive.  I'm currently working around that limit by scaling.
With an assumed intermediate precision of 2^31 the limit raises to 46340
bp = 643 in = 1634 cm.  Quite acceptable. :)

Best regards,
Stephan Hennig