MJmjmas·Sep 13, 2026
The illustrations use https://github.com/jemmybutton/fiziko to get pretty line rendering.
In Vintage Scientific Papers with LaTeXjemmybutton
fiziko
TeX2018–2026
jemmybutton / fiziko
fiziko
MetaPost library initially written to automate some elements of black and white illustrations for a physics textbook
7Distinct people
8Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
880GitHub stars
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What it is
MetaPost library initially written to automate some elements of black and white illustrations for a physics textbook
GitHub
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
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HN mentions by year8 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-09-17 22:25:08 UTC to 2026-09-13 11:35:57 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
What Hacker News says
8 sourcesMetaPost library for black and white illustrations
2 points · Open discussionWell, for that hand-drawn charm if you're willing to use METAPOST there is:
https://github.com/jemmybutton/fiziko
In Flint: A Visualization Language for the AI EraTangentially related: fiziko [0], a MetaPost library that can draw old-style physics illustrations. This is not my software.
[0]: https://github.com/jemmybutton/fiziko
In Old Book Illustrationsfiziko.mp — open-source MetaPost library initially written to automate some elements of black and white illustrations for a physics textbook, especially useful for TeX/LaTeX users.[0]
[0] https://github.com/jemmybutton/fiziko
In Fiziko – various things in MetaPost for a physics textbookThis is amazing:
https://github.com/jemmybutton/fiziko
There's an excellent blog post by the author with many more illustrations but I can't find it right now. Edit: found it!
https://habr.com/en/post/454376/
In RoughViz: JS library for creating sketchy/hand-drawn style charts in the browserThis is a nice use of MetaPost and the figures look elegant! The shading and textures seems to be a Russian aesthetic, as it reminds me of Irodov and other Mir Publishers books from my childhood in India.
For those who may not know much about MetaPost, it was originally written by Donald Knuth's student John Hobby, to a great extent based (both syntax and code of the program itself) on METAFONT, written by Knuth for designing fonts, as the companion to TeX. The idea is to describe shapes—either shapes of letters (glyphs in the typeface) in case of METAFONT, or other shapes in case of MetaPost—by telling the computer how to draw them, i.e. writing a program that describes the shape. The program automatically computes intersections of lines, joins points using “most pleasing curves” (Hobby splines), etc. See for example Figure 6 in this pos
Read the rest
t whose code is simply
beginfig(6);
draw sphere.c(1.2cm);
draw sphere.c(2.4cm) shifted (2cm, 0);
endfig;
after the author has defined the sphere.c function (macro) with shading and shadows etc (https://github.com/jemmybutton/fiziko/blob/2ccb6e1/fiziko.mp...).
It's really a fantastic way to draw for certain people, but it requires you to think about the shape to a greater level of detail (enough to write a program basically) than simply drawing it, so it's not for everyone. The syntax of other similar programs like TikZ and Asymptote has also been greatly influenced by that of METAFONT/MetaPost.
BTW the author of this post here (jemmybutton / Sergey Slyusarev) is also the author of [Fancy Euclid's “Elements” in TeX] that was posted here a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20019616
Creating old school illustrations for physics book programmatically
4 points · Open discussion