comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive - RDF feed
type: channel
description: Messages from Usenet group comp.lang.idl-pvwave, compiled by Paulo Penteado
items: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
items: Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...

color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: I took David's advice and used the subject heading when creating gifs from my display, this fixed the problem that the white background would always show up slightly grey. However, as I posted afterwards, the option reduces the number of colors by a factor of 2 roughly. It also makes the plots look 'grainy', which sounds like the same problem actually. Is there a way around this, i.e. I'd like white background when I ask for it, but I don't really want to lose the color resolution either. hmmmph! as an aside, I'm trying to give people graphics that would insert in Word documents easily. Does IDL for Windows have a vector based image format (like WMF, EMF) that I can write to? My IDL 5.2 for Linux doesn't have (or appear to) anything but CGM. -- Steve S. steve@NOSPAMmailaps.org remove NOSPAM before replying
creator: nobody@nowhere.com (S
date: 2002-04-26T21:17:58-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: "Steve Smith<steven_smith>" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:slrnacjgsk.30q.nobody@pooh.nrel.gov... > as an aside, I'm trying to give people graphics that would insert in > Word documents easily. Does IDL for Windows have a vector based > image format (like WMF, EMF) that I can write to? My IDL 5.2 for > Linux doesn't have (or appear to) anything but CGM. Am I correct in deducing that you don't consider it to be easy to insert Postscript into Word documents? I use IDL 5.5 on Windows, which supports output to WMF, but when I want to insert a graphic into a Word document, my preferred format is EPS with a TIFF preview. As I'm sure you're aware this gives very good output on a Postscript printer and it's possible to make the preview resolution high enough for the figure to be recognisable on the screen. -- Mark Hadfield "Ka puwaha et tai nei, Hoea tatou" m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)
creator: Mark Hadfield
date: 2002-04-29T00:41:23-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: Mark Hadfield (m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz) writes: > I use IDL 5.5 on Windows, which supports output to WMF, but when I > want to insert a graphic into a Word document, my preferred format is > EPS with a TIFF preview. As I'm sure you're aware this gives very good > output on a Postscript printer and it's possible to make the preview > resolution high enough for the figure to be recognisable on the > screen. I use encapsulated PostScript files exclusively for IDL output in my book. I always add a Preview (if I need one) in GhostView, since I find IDL's preview capability ... uh, anemic. Cheers, David -- David W. Fanning, Ph.D. Fanning Software Consulting Phone: 970-221-0438, E-mail: david@dfanning.com Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/ Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
creator: David Fanning
date: 2002-04-29T00:56:02-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: It's not that I consider it difficult, it just isn't very easy to exchange these types of files. Most of the authors I would give these figures to may not appreciate the fact that though the screen image looks _bad_, the printed output will look better. A lot of conference proceedings now use a web-sub- mission process that converts the file to pdf, since I'm not the one who will submit the document, I'm concerned that a .ps figure would not fare well through this process. On Mon, 29 Apr 2002 12:41:23 +1200, Mark Hadfield <m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz> wrote: > "Steve Smith<steven_smith>" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote in message > news:slrnacjgsk.30q.nobody@pooh.nrel.gov... >> as an aside, I'm trying to give people graphics that would insert in >> Word documents easily. Does IDL for Windows have a vector based >> image format (like WMF, EMF) that I can write to? My IDL 5.2 for >> Linux doesn't have (or appear to) anything but CGM. > > Am I correct in deducing that you don't consider it to be easy to > insert Postscript into Word documents? > > I use IDL 5.5 on Windows, which supports output to WMF, but when I > want to insert a graphic into a Word document, my preferred format is > EPS with a TIFF preview. As I'm sure you're aware this gives very good > output on a Postscript printer and it's possible to make the preview > resolution high enough for the figure to be recognisable on the > screen. > > -- > Mark Hadfield "Ka puwaha et tai nei, Hoea tatou" > m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz > National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) > > -- Steve S. steve@NOSPAMmailaps.org remove NOSPAM before replying
creator: nobody@nowhere.com (S
date: 2002-04-29T16:33:17-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: Steve Smith<steven_smith> (nobody@nowhere.com) writes: > It's not that I consider it difficult, it just isn't very easy to exchange > these types of files. Most of the authors I would give these figures to may > not appreciate the fact that though the screen image looks _bad_, the printed > output will look better. A lot of conference proceedings now use a web-sub- > mission process that converts the file to pdf, since I'm not the one who > will submit the document, I'm concerned that a .ps figure would not fare well > through this process. On the contrary, it is always those *other* image types that give the PDF Distiller fits. Those Adobe guys know PostScript. :-) Cheers, David -- David W. Fanning, Ph.D. Fanning Software Consulting Phone: 970-221-0438, E-mail: david@dfanning.com Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/ Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
creator: David Fanning
date: 2002-04-30T02:15:35-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: On Mon, 29 Apr 2002 20:15:35 -0600, David Fanning <david@dfanning.com> wrote: > Steve Smith<steven_smith> (nobody@nowhere.com) writes: > >> It's not that I consider it difficult, it just isn't very easy to exchange >> these types of files. Most of the authors I would give these figures to may >> not appreciate the fact that though the screen image looks _bad_, the printed >> output will look better. A lot of conference proceedings now use a web-sub- >> mission process that converts the file to pdf, since I'm not the one who >> will submit the document, I'm concerned that a .ps figure would not fare well >> through this process. > > On the contrary, it is always those *other* image > types that give the PDF Distiller fits. Those Adobe > guys know PostScript. :-) > > Cheers, > > David Hi David- Oh, I believe that Adobe should know postscript (as I think they were one of the principal developers of Postscript), it's just that fear of the unknown. The PC version of Word always shows PS as a blank box (the Mac Version could handle it), and I've always been uncomfortable with that. I know if you add the preview, it will show a picture, but can this be scaled within word similar to other figures transferred into Word via vector formats like WMF (which I _think_ is what comes off WinXX's clipboard)? If I make a figure, give it to a co-author, they may want to re-size it when they format their document. They're not going to know or much less care about the subtleties of document formats, fonts or printing. It's a WYSIWYG world now, not like when I was in grad school: we used IDL for all postscript output and inserted this into LaTeX documents. The output was beautiful, far exceeding what could be done with Word and a PC at the time. But I don't run in to too many who know, much less use TeX anymore :P ! > > -- > David W. Fanning, Ph.D. > Fanning Software Consulting > Phone: 970-221-0438, E-mail: david@dfanning.com > Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/…
creator: nobody@nowhere.com (S
date: 2002-04-30T15:02:52-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: Steve Smith<steven_smith> (nobody@nowhere.com) writes: > Oh, I believe that Adobe should know postscript (as I think they were one of > the principal developers of Postscript), it's just that fear of the unknown. > The PC version of Word always shows PS as a blank box (the Mac Version could > handle it), and I've always been uncomfortable with that. I know if you add the > preview, it will show a picture, but can this be scaled within word similar to > other figures transferred into Word via vector formats like WMF (which I > _think_ is what comes off WinXX's clipboard)? I just tried a fairly complicated scene with a map, image on map, colorbar, etc. Made a PS file in IDL. Converted that to an EPS file in Ghostview with several different types of preview images (TIFF, Windows metafile, etc.). All behaved perfectly in Windows, allowing scaling, etc. Preview looked like, well... a preview. But all printed nicely. Interestingly, if I made an EPS file in IDL, then the bounding box was made too small and some of the text of my colorbar was cut off. (This happened in IDL 5.4 and 5.5. Is this a bug?) But scaling, printing, etc. were all as I expected. > If I make a figure, give it to a > co-author, they may want to re-size it when they format their document. They're > not going to know or much less care about the subtleties of document formats, > fonts or printing. It's a WYSIWYG world now I think even the older professors would be able to negotiate these EPS files. :-) > , not like when I was in grad > school: we used IDL for all postscript output and inserted this into LaTeX > documents. The output was beautiful, far exceeding what could be done with Word > and a PC at the time. But I don't run in to too many who know, much less use > TeX anymore :P ! A pity, because TeX was something that separated the programmers from the wantabees. :-) Cheers, David -- David W. Fanning, Ph.D. Fanning Software Consulting Phone: 970-221-0438, E-mail: david@dfanning.com Coyote's Guide to…
creator: David Fanning
date: 2002-04-30T15:35:16-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: On Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:35:16 -0600, David Fanning <david@dfanning.com> wrote: > I just tried a fairly complicated scene with a map, image on map, > colorbar, etc. Made a PS file in IDL. Converted that to an EPS > file in Ghostview with several different types of preview images > (TIFF, Windows metafile, etc.). All behaved perfectly in Windows, > allowing scaling, etc. Preview looked like, well... a preview. But > all printed nicely. > > Interestingly, if I made an EPS file in IDL, then the bounding > box was made too small and some of the text of my colorbar was > cut off. (This happened in IDL 5.4 and 5.5. Is this a bug?) > But scaling, printing, etc. were all as I expected. > I ended up making PS and using gsview to make EMF files on a Windows98 machine. I'll have to go back and make some EPS files w/preview and compare the two. Incidentally, it's usually the text that is spoiled in the conversions. <snip> >> and a PC at the time. But I don't run in to too many who know, much less use >> TeX anymore :P ! > > A pity, because TeX was something that separated the programmers from > the wantabees. :-) > let's hope history is not repeated with IDL! ('naw ... never happen ;-) !). > Cheers, > > David > -- > David W. Fanning, Ph.D. > Fanning Software Consulting > Phone: 970-221-0438, E-mail: david@dfanning.com > Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/ > Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155 -- Steve S. steve@NOSPAMmailaps.org remove NOSPAM before replying
creator: nobody@nowhere.com (S
date: 2002-04-30T18:37:58-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: On Tue, 30 Apr 2002 18:37:58 -0000, Steve Smith<steven_smith> <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote: > On Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:35:16 -0600, David Fanning <david@dfanning.com> wrote: >> I just tried a fairly complicated scene with a map, image on map, >> colorbar, etc. Made a PS file in IDL. Converted that to an EPS >> file in Ghostview with several different types of preview images >> (TIFF, Windows metafile, etc.). All behaved perfectly in Windows, >> allowing scaling, etc. Preview looked like, well... a preview. But >> all printed nicely. >> >> Interestingly, if I made an EPS file in IDL, then the bounding >> box was made too small and some of the text of my colorbar was >> cut off. (This happened in IDL 5.4 and 5.5. Is this a bug?) >> But scaling, printing, etc. were all as I expected. >> > > I ended up making PS and using gsview to make EMF files on a Windows98 > machine. I'll have to go back and make some EPS files w/preview and > compare the two. Incidentally, it's usually the text that is spoiled in > the conversions. < snip$^{\infty}$ > I tried it (making EPS w/preview --> Word, call it CASE1), printing looks beautiful (and better quality than the EMF images inserted into word, call that CASE2), but the screen is ugly :( (CASE2 looks better on the screen). The most dissappointing part is that when printing the documents to a PDF file (with Adobe PDFwriter), the EPS/w preview images (CASE1) are inferior to the EMF images (CASE2) in the final PDF document >:| !!! Worse yet, the trend is preserved when printing the PDF's. So maybe the postscript is NOT used by the PDF writer? I'm speculating that perhaps the thing to do is create a postscript document by printing the Word document to a file (and massaging out the non-postscript commands WinXX sticks in) and converiting that directly to PDF. Unfortunately, it doesn't fix the original problem: I need to give a figure that can be inserted into Word by a colleauge. -- Steve S. steve@NOSPAMmailaps.org remove NOSPAM before reply…
creator: nobody@nowhere.com (S
date: 2002-04-30T22:10:28-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: "Steve Smith<steven_smith>" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:slrnacu5e9.e6b.nobody@pooh.nrel.gov... > I'm speculating that perhaps the thing to do is create a postscript > document by printing the Word document to a file (and massaging out > the non-postscript commands WinXX sticks in) and converiting that > directly to PDF. Yes. I tried this yesterday and confirmed that this works. I created an IDL EPS file, added a preview with GSview, imported it into Word, printed the Word document to a file via a Windows Postscript printer driver and then processed the resulting PS file using an automated convertor we have here. (It uses Adobe Distiller, I think.) No need to massage the PS file. Result: PDF document with nice vector diagram. > Unfortunately, it doesn't fix the original problem: I need to give a > figure that can be inserted into Word by a colleauge. Hhmmm. Yes, this is a problem, Some possibilities: - I used to have a third-party Word graphics filter that imported Postscript in vector form. It's no longer available, however, and your colleague is unlikely to have it installed in any case. - Pstoedit can convert EPS to WMF or EMF. Unfortunately it doesn't handle Postscript "image" elements, so it is of limited use. = Corel Draw? Adobe Illustrator? I think both of these can import EPS and export in various Word-friendly vector formats. They cost serious money, though. - When I flirted with Linux a few months ago I noticed that Linux word processors could import EPS files. (This is a mixed blessing, I might add, as complicated diagrams can slow down display badly.) Perhaps there's one that imports EPS and exports Word? Good luck. -- Mark Hadfield "Ka puwaha et tai nei, Hoea tatou" m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)
creator: Mark Hadfield
date: 2002-04-30T23:44:52-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: nobody@nowhere.com (Steve Smith<steven_smith>) wrote in message news:<slrnacu5e9.e6b.nobody@pooh.nrel.gov>... > On Tue, 30 Apr 2002 18:37:58 -0000, Steve Smith<steven_smith> > <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote: > > <...snip...> > > I'm speculating that perhaps the thing to do is create a postscript document by > printing the Word document to a file (and massaging out the non-postscript > commands WinXX sticks in) and converiting that directly to PDF. Unfortunately, > it doesn't fix the original problem: I need to give a figure that can be > inserted into Word by a colleauge. I thought I would just add what I do as I come across this all the time while trying to share files or show some results. The following is all done on a Windows 2000 PC. As has already been said by a few people, if I am producing a document that is to be printed on a PostScript printer, then I use PostScript from IDL, turn it to an EPS and add a preview with GSView. I then import this into Word and I can rescale it etc and all prints very nicely. However, if I am giving a presentation with say PowerPoint, then I like to use images instead of EPS files. I have been using PNG files with great success. I usually convert my PS output to 300dpi PNG images using gsview. These import nicely into Word or Powerpoint and at this resolution look very good on screen and even when printed. In fact, this is how I give plots and figures to other people in our group here as they can easily use them. These images scale well in Word or Powerpoint, and they have even been used in large posters which look good printed. I got sick of doing all this manually, so I now incorporate the conversion to PNG and cropping the image into some of my IDL code. Here is a simple example that makes a simple plot in postscript, spawns gswin32c to convert to 300dpi PNG file, then calls a routine I wrote called 'crop_image.pro' to automatically crop the image. Anyway, for what it is worth, this is what I do! Cheers, Paul pro ps_image_crop ;…
creator: paul.krummel
date: 2002-05-01T02:46:34-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: Paul Krummel (paul.krummel@csiro.au) writes: > I thought I would just add what I do as I come across this all > the time while trying to share files or show some results. The > following is all done on a Windows 2000 PC. [ 2000+ lines of code deleted ] Who said it was hard to get high-quality output out of IDL! :-) Cheers, David -- David W. Fanning, Ph.D. Fanning Software Consulting Phone: 970-221-0438, E-mail: david@dfanning.com Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/ Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
creator: David Fanning
date: 2002-05-01T03:47:50-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: thank you Paul and Mark for your ideas. Yes, if I can get my hands on the final document, I can always print to a file and convert to PDF and things look good. The PNG's do look better than other bitmapped graphics like gif or tiff (I'm curious why this is?), the figures I made are greyscale shaded surfaces. when converted to png (png16m is ghostscript device) they look good, but a little greyed (text is not sharp as it is in the vectorized image formats). It's too bad there doesn't seem to exist any universal vector-based image file format. A format that could be scaled, preserve fonts contain bitmap data and do it on any platform (I know, you're saying Postscript!) AND be supported by the most prevalent Word-processing program (was Word Perfect any better?). I use Linux IDL, but I think your routine should work with gs on linux just as well. It may be worth my while to try it out if this continues (the demand for Windows insertable figures continues here). On 30 Apr 2002 19:46:34 -0700, Paul Krummel <paul.krummel@csiro.au> wrote: > nobody@nowhere.com (Steve Smith<steven_smith>) wrote in message news:<slrnacu5e9.e6b.nobody@pooh.nrel.gov>... >> On Tue, 30 Apr 2002 18:37:58 -0000, Steve Smith<steven_smith> >> <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote: >> >> <...snip...> >> >> I'm speculating that perhaps the thing to do is create a postscript document by >> printing the Word document to a file (and massaging out the non-postscript >> commands WinXX sticks in) and converiting that directly to PDF. Unfortunately, >> it doesn't fix the original problem: I need to give a figure that can be >> inserted into Word by a colleauge. > > I thought I would just add what I do as I come across this all > the time while trying to share files or show some results. The > following is all done on a Windows 2000 PC. > > As has already been said by a few people, if I am producing > a document that is to be printed on a PostScript printer, > then I use PostScript from IDL, turn it to an EPS and add > a…
creator: nobody@nowhere.com (S
date: 2002-05-01T18:03:54-00:00

Re: color_quan(...., Cube=6) makes white white, but ...
type: item
description: thanks for your help, Mark. I have Corel Draw, it makes EMF that look identical in quality to the one's ghostscript makes, so there's no need to use it (or in general, buy it for that purpose alone). I think between your comments and others, I've pretty much put a nail in this coffin. I really appreciate the help, thanks. On Wed, 1 May 2002 11:44:52 +1200, Mark Hadfield <m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz> wrote: > "Steve Smith<steven_smith>" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote in message > news:slrnacu5e9.e6b.nobody@pooh.nrel.gov... > >> I'm speculating that perhaps the thing to do is create a postscript >> document by printing the Word document to a file (and massaging out >> the non-postscript commands WinXX sticks in) and converiting that >> directly to PDF. > > Yes. I tried this yesterday and confirmed that this works. I created > an IDL EPS file, added a preview with GSview, imported it into Word, > printed the Word document to a file via a Windows Postscript printer > driver and then processed the resulting PS file using an automated > convertor we have here. (It uses Adobe Distiller, I think.) No need to > massage the PS file. Result: PDF document with nice vector diagram. > >> Unfortunately, it doesn't fix the original problem: I need to give a >> figure that can be inserted into Word by a colleauge. > > Hhmmm. Yes, this is a problem, Some possibilities: > > - I used to have a third-party Word graphics filter that imported > Postscript in vector form. It's no longer available, however, and > your colleague is unlikely to have it installed in any case. > > - Pstoedit can convert EPS to WMF or EMF. Unfortunately it doesn't > handle Postscript "image" elements, so it is of limited use. > > = Corel Draw? Adobe Illustrator? I think both of these can import > EPS and export in various Word-friendly vector formats. They cost > serious money, though. > > - When I flirted with Linux a few months ago I noticed that Linux > word processors could import EPS files. (This is a mixed blessing,…
creator: nobody@nowhere.com (S
date: 2002-05-01T18:13:13-00:00