Skip to main content

bugs - How to embed an image into a string?


Note: The bug described in the post is in Mathematica 9, and has been fixed in 10.0.


The documentation for String contains the following statements:




Strings can contain any sequence of ordinary and special characters:
…
Strings preserve internal formatting:
…
Strings can have any expression embedded:
…
"ab \[Integral]\!\(\*FractionBox[\(1\), \(x\)]\)\[DifferentialD]x cd"


Strings can contain graphics:
…

"ab \!\(\*\nGraphicsBox[DiskBox[{0, 0}],\nImageSize->{34., Automatic}]\) cd"



So I assumed that an image could be inserted anywhere in the string. I tried to copy images in different ways:



  • from other Mathematica notebook cells, explicitly Imported before

  • from web pages opened in a browser

  • from image editors e.g. Paint

  • taking screenshots


and paste them into expressions (as list elements, function arguments etc) and it all worked perfectly well. But when I try to paste images into string literals, then the string looks good (with the image embedded) in the input cell, but the expression gets corrupted when evaluated -- it is not even a String anymore:



(* In[1]:= *) logo = Import["https://wolfram.com/favicon.ico", "Image"]
(* Out[1]= *) 

(* In[2]:= *) Shallow["Mathematica ", 1] (* The image was copy-pasted from the previous cell *)
(* Out[2]//Shallow= *) Times[<<5>>]

Question 1: Is it a bug?


It is interesting that inserting plots into string literals works well.


I need a solution to insert images into strings programmatically. It could also serve as a workaround for this bug. I was not able to find a built-in function that does exactly this, so I tried to use "\!\(\*…\)" markup mentioned in the documentation for String. I was not able to find a documentation for this markup, so I started experimenting.


Question 2: Is there a complete documentation for this markup?


After several attempts, I ended up with the following function:



(* In[3]:= *) imageToString[image_Image] := 
    "\!\(\*" <> ToString[ToBoxes[image], InputForm] <> "\)";

(* In[4]:= *) "Mathematica " <> imageToString[logo]
(* Out[4]= *) Mathematica

It seems to do what I need.


Question 3: Are there any shortcomings in my implementation? Is there a more simple/standard way to do this?



Answer



You can convert any expression to string by using ToString. If you want to preserve the visual representation, you should use ToString[(*your expression*), StandardForm].



logo = Import["http://wolfram.com/favicon.ico", "Image"]
logostr = ToString[logo, StandardForm]
StringJoin["Mathematica", logostr]
% // StringQ

string with image


Edit:


By checking the cell expression of the paste-into cell, I think I'd like to agree with Simon's comment that it looks like a bug:


error parsed cell expression


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

plotting - Plot 4D data with color as 4th dimension

I have a list of 4D data (x position, y position, amplitude, wavelength). I want to plot x, y, and amplitude on a 3D plot and have the color of the points correspond to the wavelength. I have seen many examples using functions to define color but my wavelength cannot be expressed by an analytic function. Is there a simple way to do this? Answer Here a another possible way to visualize 4D data: data = Flatten[Table[{x, y, x^2 + y^2, Sin[x - y]}, {x, -Pi, Pi,Pi/10}, {y,-Pi,Pi, Pi/10}], 1]; You can use the function Point along with VertexColors . Now the points are places using the first three elements and the color is determined by the fourth. In this case I used Hue, but you can use whatever you prefer. Graphics3D[ Point[data[[All, 1 ;; 3]], VertexColors -> Hue /@ data[[All, 4]]], Axes -> True, BoxRatios -> {1, 1, 1/GoldenRatio}]
Post a Comment
Read more

plotting - Filling between two spheres in SphericalPlot3D

Manipulate[ SphericalPlot3D[{1, 2 - n}, {θ, 0, Pi}, {ϕ, 0, 1.5 Pi}, Mesh -> None, PlotPoints -> 15, PlotRange -> {-2.2, 2.2}], {n, 0, 1}] I cant' seem to be able to make a filling between two spheres. I've already tried the obvious Filling -> {1 -> {2}} but Mathematica doesn't seem to like that option. Is there any easy way around this or ... Answer There is no built-in filling in SphericalPlot3D . One option is to use ParametricPlot3D to draw the surfaces between the two shells: Manipulate[ Show[SphericalPlot3D[{1, 2 - n}, {θ, 0, Pi}, {ϕ, 0, 1.5 Pi}, PlotPoints -> 15, PlotRange -> {-2.2, 2.2}], ParametricPlot3D[{ r {Sin[t] Cos[1.5 Pi], Sin[t] Sin[1.5 Pi], Cos[t]}, r {Sin[t] Cos[0 Pi], Sin[t] Sin[0 Pi], Cos[t]}}, {r, 1, 2 - n}, {t, 0, Pi}, PlotStyle -> Yellow, Mesh -> {2, 15}]], {n, 0, 1}]
Post a Comment
Read more

plotting - Mathematica: 3D plot based on combined 2D graphs

I have several sigmoidal fits to 3 different datasets, with mean fit predictions plus the 95% confidence limits (not symmetrical around the mean) and the actual data. I would now like to show these different 2D plots projected in 3D as in but then using proper perspective. In the link here they give some solutions to combine the plots using isometric perspective, but I would like to use proper 3 point perspective. Any thoughts? Also any way to show the mean points per time point for each series plus or minus the standard error on the mean would be cool too, either using points+vertical bars, or using spheres plus tubes. Below are some test data and the fit function I am using. Note that I am working on a logit(proportion) scale and that the final vertical scale is Log10(percentage). (* some test data *) data = Table[Null, {i, 4}]; data[[1]] = {{1, -5.8}, {2, -5.4}, {3, -0.8}, {4, -0.2}, {5, 4.6}, {1, -6.4}, {2, -5.6}, {3, -0.7}, {4, 0.04}, {5, 1.0}, {1, -6.8}, {2, -4.7}, {3, -1....
Post a Comment
Read more