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| Re: thumbnails [message #24027 is a reply to message #24006] |
Tue, 06 March 2001 18:20   |
Paul Krummel
Messages: 12
Registered: August 1998
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Junior Member |
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Hi Steve,
Well, I pretty much work exclusively in the "Windows" world now.
Like David F., my saviour is the PC version of ghostview! The latest
version of this (V3.6) is great! I usually produce my plot in postscript
(with ps fonts) then use gsview to convert it to a PNG file (portable
network graphics -> GIF replacement, but better). I can even spawn
gsview from IDL to do the conversion using the command line options
of gsview. If the plot I want is to be included in powerpoint or word
then I convert the postscript file to a 300 DPI PNG image (usually with
256 colours). Once this is imported into powerpoint and displayed on
the screen it looks great! Even when imported into word and printed
on a postscript printer, the resolution is also quite impressive. I have
also written a quick and dirty IDL routine to crop the images to remove
excess white space if needed. I prefer PNG to JPEG as JPEG is a
"lossy" format. The size of the 300 DPI PNG file is typically only ~40Kb
for a simple xy plot with a line on it. Looking at the image on screen at
full resolution it is quite large, but this scales nicely when imported
into word etc.
If I wanted to produce publication quality plots, then as has been
mentioned, I use gsview to convert my PS file to EPS and then add
a preview to the EPS file and import this into word. The preview may
look a bit crappy, but I only need it to see how the placement looks etc
and of course, when printed, it prints the PS file itself.
The current pc version of gsview can also convert PS files to a whole
swag of vector formats aswell! Which for some applications is also
very useful.
Hope, this helps or gives you some insight.
Cheers, Paul
"steve" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:<slrn9aatll.6kf.nobody@pooh.nrel.gov>...
> Thanks Mike, for the posts and emails. I've managed to patch a few of the
> figures using the pstoedit-->[.fig file]-->xfig-->[change
linewidths,fonts]
> -->[export to new image file format], it is an interesting program. I'll
> have to weigh the pro's and cons before I decide what to do next, but I
> appreciate all the help from you and others on this ng, thanks. In the
> windows-IDL world, I'm wondering, are things this bad? Is there a good
> vector graphics file format that IDL can readily export to? I can always
> add routines to spit out a bitmap whenever I generate a postscrip figure,
> but naturally, I would be even worse off than I am now (at least the ps IS
> scalable).
>
> --
> Steve S.
>
> yubdub
> steve@CLOTHESmailaps.org
> remove CLOTHES before replying
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| Re: thumbnails [message #24032 is a reply to message #24006] |
Tue, 06 March 2001 15:44 |
nobody
Messages: 12
Registered: September 1995
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Junior Member |
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On Tue, 06 Mar 2001 17:50:59 GMT, Mike Chinander <mchinand@midway.uchicago.edu>
wrote:
>
> What I have used to do this is convert the eps file with pstoedit to the
> .fig format and then edit this file (change linethickness, fontsize, add a
> background, etc) with xfig. After doing that you can save (and scale) it
> to a variety of graphics formats. I find this very useful for converting
> plots that I have saved in eps format and then sometime later need to
> convert it to jpeg or some other format suitable for inclusion in
> Powerpoint.
>
> --Mike Chinander
> --
> --
> Michael Chinander University of Chicago
> m-chinander@uchicago.edu (773)834-5101 (Voice) (773)702-0371 (Fax)
Thanks Mike, for the posts and emails. I've managed to patch a few of the
figures using the pstoedit-->[.fig file]-->xfig-->[change linewidths,fonts]
-->[export to new image file format], it is an interesting program. I'll
have to weigh the pro's and cons before I decide what to do next, but I
appreciate all the help from you and others on this ng, thanks. In the
windows-IDL world, I'm wondering, are things this bad? Is there a good
vector graphics file format that IDL can readily export to? I can always
add routines to spit out a bitmap whenever I generate a postscrip figure,
but naturally, I would be even worse off than I am now (at least the ps IS
scalable).
--
Steve S.
yubdub
steve@CLOTHESmailaps.org
remove CLOTHES before replying
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| Re: thumbnails [message #24033 is a reply to message #24006] |
Tue, 06 March 2001 12:55 |
nobody
Messages: 12
Registered: September 1995
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Junior Member |
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On Tue, 06 Mar 2001 17:50:59 GMT, Mike Chinander <mchinand@midway.uchicago.edu>
wrote:
> In article <MPG.150ed0047c674e33989d7f@news.frii.com>,
> David Fanning <davidf@dfanning.com> wrote:
>> steve (nobody@nowhere.com) writes:
>>
>>> As I suspected, thanks for confirming that. As long as I'm talking to a
>>> guru: is there an image format I can use that will display nice in say,
>>> powerpoint, and also produce nice postscript output? I write all my
>>> routines to display to my X display (in Linux) and then I switch to the
>>> PS device and send everything to a .ps file, making some minor adjustments
>>> for special cases (like bitmapped images mixed with line-art). This makes
>>> very nice postcript output, but now I'm trying to fix what should not
>>> need to be fixed: I'm taking a scalable format (postscript) and producing
>>> a non-scalable thumbnail (bitmap) for display. I don't want to just dump
>>> my X display to a bitmap format like tiff, gif, jpeg. Since I'm using a
>>> *nix-like system, is there something else I should be doing? I'm a little
>>> afraid of things like Windows Meta File, since Win-xx usually makes postscript
>>> a real chore, and actually, I don't see it in my IDL help. Any suggestions?
>>
>> You might try something like CGM output. Some
>> software is able to read and display those
>> files nicely. I've never used it myself.
>>
>> I tend to use JPEG files for nearly everything.
>> Sometimes if I need great looking viewgraphs
>> I'll do the "scale everything by 4" trick that
>> I have talked about previously in this newsgroup.
>> I use the Z-buffer at 4x resolution, use true-type
>> fonts, set all thickness, character sizes, etc to
>> 4x. Take a snapshot, reduce the image by 4x, and
>> make a JPEG file out of that. It produces some
>> lovely viewgraphs...sometimes. :-)
>>
>> I'm not sure you are going to have your cake and
>> eat it too with IDL. (Or with your computer, for
>> that matter. The only computer I know of that was
>> fabulous at showing great looking preview images
>> was the Next computer using Display PostScript as
>> it's rendering language.)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> David
>
> What I have used to do this is convert the eps file with pstoedit to the
> .fig format and then edit this file (change linethickness, fontsize, add a
> background, etc) with xfig. After doing that you can save (and scale) it
> to a variety of graphics formats. I find this very useful for converting
> plots that I have saved in eps format and then sometime later need to
> convert it to jpeg or some other format suitable for inclusion in
> Powerpoint.
>
> --Mike Chinander
> --
> --
> Michael Chinander University of Chicago
> m-chinander@uchicago.edu (773)834-5101 (Voice) (773)702-0371 (Fax)
that was helpful, Mike, thanks. I looked at xfig and pstoedit, it will be
useful in the future for me. However, as I used vector-drawn fonts in most
of the figures (too lazy to us psfonts, usually they change the drawing area)
importing into xfig the vector fonts are inumerable line-segments that seems
a waste of time to go and delete-edit on a character by character basis. If
I had used ps-fonts, this might have been easier. I was hoping to script the
whole job, which looks like it could be done, but the forementioned weakness
makes me think I'll just bag it. I find converting to pdf format and using
acrobat might be the best solution, unlike MS-powerpoint (or even Sun-Star
Office), it renders the pdf-from-ps pretty well. I'm going to use the ps2psf
command line on my linux system. pstoedit web-page says that one weakness of
pstoedit is that it bit-maps all but a select set of standard postscript
fonts. If I had a nickel for every font problem I've encountered over the
years !!!!.....
--
Steve S.
yubdub
steve@CLOTHESmailaps.org
remove CLOTHES before replying
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| Re: thumbnails [message #24034 is a reply to message #24006] |
Tue, 06 March 2001 09:50 |
mchinand
Messages: 66
Registered: September 1996
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Member |
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In article <MPG.150ed0047c674e33989d7f@news.frii.com>,
David Fanning <davidf@dfanning.com> wrote:
> steve (nobody@nowhere.com) writes:
>
>> As I suspected, thanks for confirming that. As long as I'm talking to a
>> guru: is there an image format I can use that will display nice in say,
>> powerpoint, and also produce nice postscript output? I write all my
>> routines to display to my X display (in Linux) and then I switch to the
>> PS device and send everything to a .ps file, making some minor adjustments
>> for special cases (like bitmapped images mixed with line-art). This makes
>> very nice postcript output, but now I'm trying to fix what should not
>> need to be fixed: I'm taking a scalable format (postscript) and producing
>> a non-scalable thumbnail (bitmap) for display. I don't want to just dump
>> my X display to a bitmap format like tiff, gif, jpeg. Since I'm using a
>> *nix-like system, is there something else I should be doing? I'm a little
>> afraid of things like Windows Meta File, since Win-xx usually makes postscript
>> a real chore, and actually, I don't see it in my IDL help. Any suggestions?
>
> You might try something like CGM output. Some
> software is able to read and display those
> files nicely. I've never used it myself.
>
> I tend to use JPEG files for nearly everything.
> Sometimes if I need great looking viewgraphs
> I'll do the "scale everything by 4" trick that
> I have talked about previously in this newsgroup.
> I use the Z-buffer at 4x resolution, use true-type
> fonts, set all thickness, character sizes, etc to
> 4x. Take a snapshot, reduce the image by 4x, and
> make a JPEG file out of that. It produces some
> lovely viewgraphs...sometimes. :-)
>
> I'm not sure you are going to have your cake and
> eat it too with IDL. (Or with your computer, for
> that matter. The only computer I know of that was
> fabulous at showing great looking preview images
> was the Next computer using Display PostScript as
> it's rendering language.)
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
What I have used to do this is convert the eps file with pstoedit to the
.fig format and then edit this file (change linethickness, fontsize, add a
background, etc) with xfig. After doing that you can save (and scale) it
to a variety of graphics formats. I find this very useful for converting
plots that I have saved in eps format and then sometime later need to
convert it to jpeg or some other format suitable for inclusion in
Powerpoint.
--Mike Chinander
--
--
Michael Chinander University of Chicago
m-chinander@uchicago.edu (773)834-5101 (Voice) (773)702-0371 (Fax)
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| Re: thumbnails [message #24035 is a reply to message #24006] |
Tue, 06 March 2001 09:44 |
davidf
Messages: 2866
Registered: September 1996
|
Senior Member |
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steve (nobody@nowhere.com) writes:
> As I suspected, thanks for confirming that. As long as I'm talking to a
> guru: is there an image format I can use that will display nice in say,
> powerpoint, and also produce nice postscript output? I write all my
> routines to display to my X display (in Linux) and then I switch to the
> PS device and send everything to a .ps file, making some minor adjustments
> for special cases (like bitmapped images mixed with line-art). This makes
> very nice postcript output, but now I'm trying to fix what should not
> need to be fixed: I'm taking a scalable format (postscript) and producing
> a non-scalable thumbnail (bitmap) for display. I don't want to just dump
> my X display to a bitmap format like tiff, gif, jpeg. Since I'm using a
> *nix-like system, is there something else I should be doing? I'm a little
> afraid of things like Windows Meta File, since Win-xx usually makes postscript
> a real chore, and actually, I don't see it in my IDL help. Any suggestions?
You might try something like CGM output. Some
software is able to read and display those
files nicely. I've never used it myself.
I tend to use JPEG files for nearly everything.
Sometimes if I need great looking viewgraphs
I'll do the "scale everything by 4" trick that
I have talked about previously in this newsgroup.
I use the Z-buffer at 4x resolution, use true-type
fonts, set all thickness, character sizes, etc to
4x. Take a snapshot, reduce the image by 4x, and
make a JPEG file out of that. It produces some
lovely viewgraphs...sometimes. :-)
I'm not sure you are going to have your cake and
eat it too with IDL. (Or with your computer, for
that matter. The only computer I know of that was
fabulous at showing great looking preview images
was the Next computer using Display PostScript as
it's rendering language.)
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
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| Re: thumbnails [message #24038 is a reply to message #24006] |
Tue, 06 March 2001 09:17 |
nobody
Messages: 12
Registered: September 1995
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Junior Member |
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On Mon, 5 Mar 2001 19:14:52 -0700, David Fanning <davidf@dfanning.com> wrote:
> steve (nobody@nowhere.com) writes:
>
>> So, Liam, David, ... , is this the best I can do? Would the IDL routines do
>> a vectorized version of the lineart, or just bitmaps? Thanks again for the
>> tips so far ...
>
> I think bitmap is the best we can hope for in the
> present incarnation. :-(
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting
> Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
> Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
As I suspected, thanks for confirming that. As long as I'm talking to a
guru: is there an image format I can use that will display nice in say,
powerpoint, and also produce nice postscript output? I write all my
routines to display to my X display (in Linux) and then I switch to the
PS device and send everything to a .ps file, making some minor adjustments
for special cases (like bitmapped images mixed with line-art). This makes
very nice postcript output, but now I'm trying to fix what should not
need to be fixed: I'm taking a scalable format (postscript) and producing
a non-scalable thumbnail (bitmap) for display. I don't want to just dump
my X display to a bitmap format like tiff, gif, jpeg. Since I'm using a
*nix-like system, is there something else I should be doing? I'm a little
afraid of things like Windows Meta File, since Win-xx usually makes postscript
a real chore, and actually, I don't see it in my IDL help. Any suggestions?
--
Steve S.
yubdub
steve@CLOTHESmailaps.org
remove CLOTHES before replying
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| Re: thumbnails [message #24044 is a reply to message #24006] |
Mon, 05 March 2001 17:20 |
nobody
Messages: 12
Registered: September 1995
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Junior Member |
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On Thu, 01 Mar 2001 18:20:09 -0000, steve <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:
> Does anyone know how to produce *.eps files with thumbnails (in IDL 5.x)?
>
> --
> Steve S.
>
> yubdub
> steve@CLOTHESmailaps.org
> remove CLOTHES before replying
Thanks for all the replies :^D !! I'm running IDL 5.2 on a Linux box, I haven't
updated to newer versions (have the CD's + maintenance contract) because it
looks like there are no major improvements and several concessions, like GIF
support. So I can't use the thumbnail option of 5.4, however good or bad, er
I'm not that desparate. I looked at Liam's response about epstool, my version
of Linux came with ghostscript 5.1, ghostview 3.5.8, no epstool, though. There
is a tool called ps2epsi, which supposedly adds a TIFF thumbnail, but I didn't
get it to work. I went to the link in Liam's post and grabbed the tarball for
the compiled Linux binary, unpacked it and tried it (without installing), and
it does work. My goal was the following: since I write all my papers in TeX,
and submit figures in Postscript, why should I do all the double work of re-
creating all those figures for presentations? So I grabbed the epstool and
starting experimenting:
[hostname dir]$ ./epstool -w -zppmraw -ot15.eps fig7d.ps
took my idl.ps files and made them into previewable *.eps files that do show
up in powerpoint. The preview is not too bad, though my graphics are a mix of
bitmap images and lineart, like graphs. I'm pretty sure the line art would
look a lot better if it was vectorized in the preview image, which I don't
think it is, it's looks like it's just bitmapped.
So, Liam, David, ... , is this the best I can do? Would the IDL routines do
a vectorized version of the lineart, or just bitmaps? Thanks again for the
tips so far ...
--
Steve S.
yubdub
steve@CLOTHESmailaps.org
remove CLOTHES before replying
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| Re: thumbnails [message #24088 is a reply to message #24006] |
Fri, 09 March 2001 01:07 |
Paul Krummel
Messages: 12
Registered: August 1998
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Junior Member |
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Sure! You can find ghostview V3.6 and ghostscript V6.5 (AFPL) from here:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
You have to install ghostscript first then ghostview, it's pretty
straightforward.
Cheers, Paul
"Richard G. French" <rfrench@wellesley.edu> wrote in message
news:3AA82292.3B8FFF5C@wellesley.edu...
>
>
> Paul Krummel wrote:
>>
>> Hi Steve,
>>
>> Well, I pretty much work exclusively in the "Windows" world now.
>> Like David F., my saviour is the PC version of ghostview! The latest
>> version of this (V3.6) is great!
>
> Could you tell us where to find this latest version, Paul? You've
> convinced me!
> Thanks,
> Dick French
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| Re: thumbnails [message #24092 is a reply to message #24027] |
Thu, 08 March 2001 16:23 |
Richard French
Messages: 173
Registered: December 2000
|
Senior Member |
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Paul Krummel wrote:
>
> Hi Steve,
>
> Well, I pretty much work exclusively in the "Windows" world now.
> Like David F., my saviour is the PC version of ghostview! The latest
> version of this (V3.6) is great!
Could you tell us where to find this latest version, Paul? You've
convinced me!
Thanks,
Dick French
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