Hi I'm typestting some graphs including a few axvspan's with eg. a facecolor='0.6' . This looks very nice if I output a PNG, but when I inculde this in my TeX document the axis labels dosn't scale. Then I try to go the postscript way, and the the labels scale nicely but the colored fields of axvspan prints as a coarse raster color. Is there a best way of optimizing print quality? -Peter
Peter I. Hansen wrote: > Hi > > I'm typestting some graphs including a few axvspan's with eg. a > facecolor='0.6' . This looks very nice if I output a PNG, but when I > inculde this in my TeX document the axis labels dosn't scale. Then I > try to go the postscript way, and the the labels scale nicely but the > colored fields of axvspan prints as a coarse raster color. I assume you mean that the axvspan prints as a solid color, rather than semi-transparent (alpha-blended). That is an unfortunate limitation of the Postscript format -- it can not handle transparency. > Is there a best way of optimizing print quality? Each of the output formats has a number of different limitations -- it depends a lot on what you're rendering and where you need it to go. You could try saving as a PDF, and then using pdftex to generate your document, if that's an option for you. Cheers, Mike -- Michael Droettboom Science Software Branch Operations and Engineering Division Space Telescope Science Institute Operated by AURA for NASA
On Nov 30, 2007 4:58 PM, Michael Droettboom <md...@st...> wrote: > Peter I. Hansen wrote: > > Hi > > > > I'm typestting some graphs including a few axvspan's with eg. a > > facecolor='0.6' . This looks very nice if I output a PNG, but when I > > inculde this in my TeX document the axis labels dosn't scale. Then I > > try to go the postscript way, and the the labels scale nicely but the > > colored fields of axvspan prints as a coarse raster color. > > I assume you mean that the axvspan prints as a solid color, rather than > semi-transparent (alpha-blended). That is an unfortunate limitation of > the Postscript format -- it can not handle transparency. Yes, I'm using a solid color. > > Is there a best way of optimizing print quality? > > Each of the output formats has a number of different limitations -- it > depends a lot on what you're rendering and where you need it to go. > > You could try saving as a PDF, and then using pdftex to generate your > document, if that's an option for you. Unfortunately, saving directly as PDF does not work on my (Debian) system. It gives a "NotImplementedError". I'm using version 0.90.1, and maybe this will change for 0.91 .
Peter I. Hansen wrote: > On Nov 30, 2007 4:58 PM, Michael Droettboom <md...@st...> wrote: >> Peter I. Hansen wrote: >>> Hi >>> >>> I'm typestting some graphs including a few axvspan's with eg. a >>> facecolor='0.6' . This looks very nice if I output a PNG, but when I >>> inculde this in my TeX document the axis labels dosn't scale. Then I >>> try to go the postscript way, and the the labels scale nicely but the >>> colored fields of axvspan prints as a coarse raster color. >> I assume you mean that the axvspan prints as a solid color, rather than >> semi-transparent (alpha-blended). That is an unfortunate limitation of >> the Postscript format -- it can not handle transparency. > > Yes, I'm using a solid color. > >>> Is there a best way of optimizing print quality? >> Each of the output formats has a number of different limitations -- it >> depends a lot on what you're rendering and where you need it to go. >> >> You could try saving as a PDF, and then using pdftex to generate your >> document, if that's an option for you. > > Unfortunately, saving directly as PDF does not work on my (Debian) > system. It gives a "NotImplementedError". I'm using version 0.90.1, > and maybe this will change for 0.91 . Can you please send the full traceback that accompanies this error? PDF should be working is general, but perhaps you are running into a specific feature of the PDF backend that is not working, and there may be a workaround (or 0.91 may work)... Cheers, Mike -- Michael Droettboom Science Software Branch Operations and Engineering Division Space Telescope Science Institute Operated by AURA for NASA
Peter I. Hansen wrote: > On Nov 30, 2007 11:14 PM, Michael Droettboom <md...@st...> wrote: >> Thanks for the script. I ran it through 0.90 and 0.91... Perhaps I >> don't understand your problem with color. To my eyes, the plot >> generated with Agg (to a PNG) and to a PDF look the same, in terms of >> the color of the axvspans. >> >> So, either your mpl installation is generating a different PDF than mine >> (certainly possible), or I'm just not seeing the difference that is >> bothering you (also possible). It could be that you are using a >> different PDF viewer (I'm using Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0 on Linux...) >> >> I've attached the PDF I get from 0.90 on my machine. Does it look the >> same as yours? [This attachment was too large for the list and bounced... I'm bringing the conversation back to the list.] > Your output looks similar to mine. The thing that bothers me (and I > see that maybe I wasn't clear enough on that to begin with) is the > grainy way the colors look when printed. That may be beyond matplotlib's control. Matplotlib "requests" a solid grey color, but the printing stack (Acrobat, the printer driver or the printer itself) could be interpreting that in many ways. You could experiment with various printer settings. Sorry to not have a more helpful answer. Perhaps others on this list have suggestions. Cheers, Mike -- Michael Droettboom Science Software Branch Operations and Engineering Division Space Telescope Science Institute Operated by AURA for NASA
On Mon, 3 Dec 2007, Michael Droettboom wrote: > That may be beyond matplotlib's control. Matplotlib "requests" a solid > grey color, but the printing stack (Acrobat, the printer driver or the > printer itself) could be interpreting that in many ways. You could > experiment with various printer settings. > > Sorry to not have a more helpful answer. Perhaps others on this list > have suggestions. Don't know if this is pertinent to this thread, but I see differences when viewing LaTeX documents such as an OMR (Optical Mark Reader) form I designed when viewed as PostScript and as PDF. The former displays the graphics better than does the latter while the latter better displays the text. In my case, the printed version combines the highest quality of the two. Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | Integrity Credibility Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | Innovation <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863