A Smooth Transition to Modern mathoid-based Math Rendering in Wikipedia with Automatic Visual Regression Testing

Moritz Schubotz, Alan Sexton

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

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Abstract

Pixelated images of mathematical formulae, which are inaccessible to screen readers and computer algebra systems, disappeared recently from Wikipedia. In this paper, we describe our efforts in maturing mathoid, the new services that provides better math rendering to Wikipedia, from a research prototype to a production service and a novel visual similarity image comparison tool designed for regression testing mathematical formulae rendering engines. Currently, updates to Math rendering engines that are used in production are infrequent. Due to their high complexity and large variety of special cases, developers are intimidated by the dangers involved in introducing new features and resolving non critical problems. Today’s hardware is capable of rendering large collections of mathematical contents in a reasonable amount of time. Thus, developers can run their new algorithms before using them in production. However, until now they could not identify the most significant changes in rendering due to the large data volume and necessity for human inspection of the results. The novel image comparison tool we are proposing, will help to identify critical changes in the images and thus lower the bar for improving production level mathematical rendering engines.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 9th Conference on Intelligent Computer Mathematics
PublisherCEUR-WS.org
Pages132-145
Number of pages14
Publication statusPublished - 22 Jul 2016
Event9th Conference on Intelligent Computer Mathematics: CICM 2016 - Bialystok, Poland
Duration: 25 Jul 201629 Jul 2016

Publication series

NameCEUR Workshop Proceedings
ISSN (Electronic)1613-0073

Conference

Conference9th Conference on Intelligent Computer Mathematics
Country/TerritoryPoland
CityBialystok
Period25/07/1629/07/16

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