| Printing to postscript [message #11264] |
Tue, 17 March 1998 00:00  |
Jon Marchant
Messages: 2
Registered: March 1998
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Junior Member |
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Hi - I'm a bit new to IDL and would like some advice on
printing greyscale filled contour plots so that they can
be imported into Microsoft Word. The plots are drawn using
the 'B-W Linear' colour table on the unix version of IDL 4.
I've currently got IDL to print encapsulated postscript
files, but when printed out the colour (grey) range isn't
as large as it should be, i.e. it goes from black to medium
grey instead of black to white. I've checked the data and the
code, the full range of the colour table should definitely be
in the graphs, and indeed is apparent when the same plot is
sent to the screen. Does anyone have any idea what's going
wrong?
Also, as these are quite large arrays I'm printing, the eps
files are huge (2MB plus); is there no alternative to eps
for importing graphs into word?
Thanks in advance
--
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Jon Marchant, Unit For Space Sciences & Astrophysics,
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NR, UK
jmm@ukc.ac.uk http://rosy.ukc.ac.uk/~jmm/
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| Re: Printing to postscript [message #11267 is a reply to message #11264] |
Tue, 17 March 1998 00:00  |
davidf
Messages: 2866
Registered: September 1996
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Senior Member |
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Jon Marchant (jmm@ukc.ac.uk) writes:
> Hi - I'm a bit new to IDL and would like some advice on
> printing greyscale filled contour plots so that they can
> be imported into Microsoft Word. The plots are drawn using
> the 'B-W Linear' colour table on the unix version of IDL 4.
>
> I've currently got IDL to print encapsulated postscript
> files, but when printed out the colour (grey) range isn't
> as large as it should be, i.e. it goes from black to medium
> grey instead of black to white. I've checked the data and the
> code, the full range of the colour table should definitely be
> in the graphs, and indeed is apparent when the same plot is
> sent to the screen. Does anyone have any idea what's going
> wrong?
You need to set the Bits_Per_Pixel keyword on the Device
command to 8, after you do a Set_Plot to PS. It is 4 by
default, for only 16 shades of grey. For other tips on
PostScript printing, see my web page and the articles on
how to produce Perfect PostScript Output.
> Also, as these are quite large arrays I'm printing, the eps
> files are huge (2MB plus); is there no alternative to eps
> for importing graphs into word?
There are alternatives, but none give you the nice, crisp
letters and sharp lines that make you want to use PostScript
in the first place. One alternative is to not use filled
contours (I think it is all those polygons that is making
your file so big), but rather display the data as an image
with the contours on top of it. This is a little more
difficult to do in a PostScript file than it is on the
display, but if you can find someone with a copy of my
book, you can see how it is done on page 96.
Cheers,
David
-----------------------------------------------------------
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
Phone: 970-221-0438
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
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| Re: Printing to postscript [message #11341 is a reply to message #11264] |
Mon, 23 March 1998 00:00 |
Jon Marchant
Messages: 2
Registered: March 1998
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Junior Member |
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William Connolley wrote:
[snip]
> suggestion: when plotting to the screen, you often have only, say, 170 colours
> available; so colour indices 0...169 are (say) black to white. If you switch to
> ps, you have 256 colours available, so 0...169 no longer span the full range.
That did the trick! Thanks :)
--
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Jon Marchant, Unit For Space Sciences & Astrophysics,
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NR, UK
jmm@ukc.ac.uk http://rosy.ukc.ac.uk/~jmm/
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