| Re: Object graphics output police (iImage) [message #44088] |
Fri, 13 May 2005 10:24  |
Randall Skelton
Messages: 31
Registered: October 2004
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Many thanks for the replies. However, I thought this was a 'simple'
graphic ;) In my real plot, the bitmap image is included to try and
give some sense model grid-box size before adding contours, wind
vectors, and symbols/text annotations for various observations. Thus,
there are real, vectors that I'd like to preserve in the output as
well. The truely correct way of doing this probably involves drawing
each grid-box as a filled polygon but I was trying to cheat. Yes, the
'square' pixels aren't perfect, but they'd get my point across in this
case.
More generally, my obsession with vector graphics stems from them
generally being a more flexible and useful format. Licensing restricts
me to using IDL when connected to the net so if I need to edit some
text quickly I can fire up Adobe illustrator or Corel draw and simply
edit the text. Likewise, with fine adjustments of arrows and axes and
the thickness of certain contour lines. Lastly, It is common practice
for nice, illustrative figures to be recycled for years--- long after
the people/scripts that created them have disappeared.
Trying to quickly edit a bitmap image is an absolute nightmare and it
never looks as good as it should when you are done. The default image
sizes being output by IDL (and iTools in particular) generally result
in very poor quality figures for paper publications. I know it isn't
rocket science but, if I had a nickel for every time I've seen a
powerpoint talk or a paper with badly scaled bitmap figures, I'd be
wearing gold suits.
I'll probably just revert to using filled contour lines and forget
about the grid boxes for the moment.
Cheers,
Randall
NB: who do I write to for requesting getting native pdf output again?
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