[texhax] using latex from an external plotting package

[Darren Dale]

Hello,

I am a contributing developer on the matplotlib project , an open source 
plotting library released under the python license. I have put a lot of 
effort into developing an option that uses latex to handle the text layout. 
This process is a bit convoluted, where we use dvipng to generate images of 
the text that can be displayed on screen, and a complicated system involving 
PSFrag to generate postscript/eps output.

I was hoping someone reading this list might have suggestions on how to 
improve this system. Is there a way to use latex in a kind of server mode to 
provide the layout information needed to render the glyphs on screen, and in a 
postscript, eps or pdf document? (dvips output is extremely difficult to use 
for this task.) Matplotlib ordinarily uses freetype to render text, could it 
be possible to use latex in coordination with freetype? Any advice would be 
greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Darren Dale

(I'm sorry if this is a repeat post, but it doesnt look like my original 
message was delivered.)