On May 1, 2007, at 3:33 PM, Aditya Mahajan wrote:
* Draw simple number lines, color if possible, label the cm dots or vertical lines, label the number line, fill in the numbers (or miss some out), place it where I want it, and perhaps have the label in a different color
* Draw plane shapes like squares, rectangles, triangles and so on, just 2-D plane shapes. Outline in some color, inside with another color. Label them. Place them where I a want them. Sometimes I would like to extend the lines to show that all exterior angles add up to 360 degrees, things like that, and add in the arc and shade it in a different color.
Metapost or pstricks is the easiest way to draw such things. I would recommend metapost, as it is well integrated with Context. See http://melusine.eu.org/syracuse/metapost/cours/ for some examples of geometric figures using metapost. Also see
While I don't disagree with Aditya, I think tikz should also be considered. It works well with ConTeXt if you use a relatively new version (like the one in TeXLive 2007), some people find its syntax easier to master than metapost, and the code can be used in ConTeXt and LaTeX. Just have a look at the big pgfmanual.pdf, which is probably already on your hard disk. Thomas