math markdown on this site [duplicate]

This question already has an answer here:

Can we have math markdown on this site (like on math.stackchange.com)? It will make answering some of the geometry questions easier

marked as duplicate by doppelgreener, Alexandre Vaillancourt♦Dec 13 '17 at 14:04

• I'm not against it, but I also feel like if a question requires that much math in its answer, it's probably more suited for math.se, not here. Math here needs to be translated into readable code eventually anyway, so I'd encourage code-like answers rather than math answers. – user744 Jan 14 '11 at 15:56
• @Joe Wreschnig, agreed, I would rather have psuedo-code than crazy math symbols. I don't know what a lot of those math symbols mean, but code I can read. – AttackingHobo Jan 15 '11 at 4:02
• I'd vote this up, but for some reason I'm just asked to log in or register to vote.. and I'm already logged in. – Jari Komppa Jan 17 '11 at 18:40
• @JariKomppa: maybe it works now? I'm sure voting this up even if it's old. – sam hocevar Dec 9 '11 at 16:42
• @JoeWreschnig: maths is used here as a language, not as a discipline; there are very few game development topics requiring complex maths that would be on-topic on math.se. Have you ever browsed a copy of Real Time Rendering? There is almost no code in there, but it's stuffed with very complex formulas and equations. – sam hocevar Dec 9 '11 at 16:46
• @SamHocevar Posting answers in the language of mathematics should be discouraged. We want algorithms in pseudocode, not "Oh just solve this equation $$math$$ and that'll be your answer". – bobobobo Jun 24 '13 at 16:12
• @bobobobo we also want proofs of these algorithms, which are often more easily written in the language of mathematics. – sam hocevar Jun 24 '13 at 20:20
• @SamHocevar I would strongly argue that proofs should not be outlined on this site. A mathematical proof is off topic. – bobobobo Jun 25 '13 at 13:14
• @bobobobo It’s great to be so opinionated; fortunately only the community gets to decide what is off-topic! I believe in the educational value of constructionist answers and will continue to write step-by-step proofs whenever relevant. Feel free to take a different stance in your contributions. – sam hocevar Jun 25 '13 at 16:20
• I want to bump this question again. It's been 5 years, and answers like this are sorely in need of TeX. – NauticalMile Feb 8 '16 at 22:50
• Several years ago this finally got completed. :) I'm voting to close this as a duplicate of the request that finalised this. – doppelgreener Dec 13 '17 at 13:17

I was editing "Detect mouse click on a bezier curve's neighborhood" and was surprised to find that GameDev lacks TeX support.

Having TeX support would hugely improve readability of some quality answers such as,

Although the majority of questions and answers present equations in code, it's useful to be able to discuss equations in math. Mathematical equations may have better documentation, are code agnostic and are probably how people studied the concepts in school.

I would love to be able to see this work,

$$\Gamma(z) = \int_0^\infty t^{z-1}e^{-t}dt\,.$$

• Although I agree there is some usefulness for things like exponentiation, the latter equation you posted here is worrisome to me. What does Γ(z) have to do with game development? – bobobobo Jun 24 '13 at 16:22
• Seconded. To really grok what's going on with game vector math, it's nice to be able to see some real numbers written down the way you would if you were solving the problem on paper. That's laborious to lay out with monospace ascii. I also like having access to things like subscripts and superscripts so I can represent pre & post transformation versions of an entity, and readable exponents. Without this, we have to fall back on images for complex formulae - not ideal: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/71392/… – DMGregory Feb 23 '15 at 14:08

I'm pretty sure this is going to be status-declined, since this discussion has happened for other sites and they've turned it down.

Reference: LaTeX on Stack Overflow?

You can use http://mathurl.com/ in the mean time if you have the rep to post multiple images.

I do not see how it would really be a benefit; the primary math-related topics that appear are vectors and matrices; both easily enough displayed in either text or code.

If it needs integration as part of the answer, I think it's probably more a maths based question. (Or it could be shown as pseudocode).

• There's also a lot of "physics" (actually, newtonian mechanics) where derivatives and partial derivatives are common. Also, there aren't many questions about lighting yet but anything a bit high level will require complex equations that have nothing to do with stackexchange. – sam hocevar Dec 9 '11 at 16:38
• I'd also disagree with the assertion that 'both are easily enough displayed in text or code'; vector operations are, at least for me, much more parseable with a bit of mathematics markup than they are in either text or code. Even just clean over-arrows and hats for distinguishing vectors from scalars, unit vectors from vectors, etc. can make a tangible difference. – Steven Stadnicki Jun 27 '12 at 4:51