Frank Brown has worked on a system for communicating a knot diagram using a string of text characters.
bai caj abd bbg cbh dbj bck ccg dcl cdo
for example, is the cypher for the overhand knot diagram.
Easy to communicate, and unambiguous in its description of the diagram.
Each three letter block represents one cell in the diagram. The first letter denotes the column starting top left with 'a'. The second letter denotes the row, top row again starts with 'a'. The third letter denotes a picture 'tile' from a set defined on the wiki.
Reading the cypher, the first three letters bai signify tile 'i', a quarter turn, in column 'b' row 'a'. the crossing tiles are self evident. the tile 'd' in column 'a' row 'b' denotes the working end of the knot, and the arrow tile 'o' in the set cdo denotes the SP.
If you would like to read more about Franks cypher and even download a Windows program which allows you to key in this cypher and recreate the diagram or draw a diagram to create a new cypher then go to the new wiki.
http://knotcyphers.pbwiki.com/The-FCB-CypherThe next version will have facility to use multiple cords and be able to reverse the 'handedness' of a diagram.
It has gone about as far as it can in the glorious isolation of the creation bench, time now for some new minds to add their thoughts to its development either here or over on the wiki.
Derek