Looking for a self-contained equation rendering library

Question

Is there such a thing as a small, self-contained library that will render an equation written in a text-based format (e.g. LaTeX or MathML) to an image (either vector or raster)?

It would be preferable if it's in Python or Python-friendly.

(One possibility that I've found: Matplotlib has Python code to parse and display LaTeX equations, using gl2ps. If I don't find anything else it seems possible to extract all the relevant bits into a separate library.)

EDIT: by "self-contained" I mean they can't use TeX/LaTex itself since unfortunately I can't rely on it being installed

Answer 1

A versatile program and Python module to allow conversion of LaTeX math equations in to PNG images: http://code.google.com/p/latexmath2png/ (MIT license, relies on dvipng).

Answer 2

I don't know if this meets your requirements, but I knew MoinMoin has had latex extensions for a while so I looked again and found this:

MoinMoin Latex Support

You should be able to take this code and re-use it in your app.

Answer 3

You can try to convert MathML to SVG.

Answer 4

Maybe You need gnuplot

Answer 5

There's mimetex a stand alone program for rendering latex math... it's not a library however

http://www.forkosh.com/mimetex.html