I came across a thing I wanted to visualize, and of course it was some insane
8th-order polynomial --- in unexpanded/simplified form, of course.

After getting the equation, finding an online polynomial calculator, wrestling
with a bug, and getting the simplified expansion, I moved on to starting on
converting it to POV-Ray syntax.

The docs state:

"Writing the polynomial vector
.....

Note: It is also possible to make a little program with your favorite
programming language which will print the poly vector from the polynomial
function, but making a program like this is up to you."

So, not being dissuaded by the 120 terms in the polynomial syntax, I copied and
pasted the table from the docs into OpenOffice Calc and have most of it worked
out.

Does anyone have a link to prior work on this?
Has someone actually written a program to return a polynomial vector or the
simplified syntax?

Does anyone here have the knowledge & skill to parse, expand and simplify
polynomial expressions?
Can you provide a reference to an explanation / code?

It would be great to have a native (SDL or source code) polynomial 'processor' -
you know - in v 4.0  ;D



It may take me a while to get my spreadsheet worked out and polished up a bit,
but if I'm reminded (prodded) I can post it here (probably as a zip).

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