I'm looking for a component that generates math equations. like what wikipedia has but for windows server.
if i enter x^2, it will generate a gif with proper formatting as output
It must run on IIS and .NET and not a web service from somewhere.
has anyone seen anything that does this?
Check this out. They have a LaTeX like equation editor, and apparently the can compile their code with Visual Studio. You might be able to get something working related to your question.
Well, one option would be to write your own parser - i.e. that takes "x^2" and builds a .NET 3.5 Expression to do the same. Once you have an Expression, you can use Compile() to get a delegate (Func<double,double>, for example) that you can use to generate the points. That isn't a huge amount of work (it took me about 2 hours to write a similar (though basic) parser a few months ago).
Of course, you'd still need to worry about the imaging side... maybe the .NET chart control released a few months ago? (it isn't just ASP.NET)