image()

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> On Sun, 14 Nov 1999 23:10:26 +0000 (GMT), Prof Brian D Ripley
>>>>> <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk> said:

    BDR> On Sat, 13 Nov 1999, Jonathan Rougier wrote:
    >> May I raise the issue of the behaviour of image()?  In image()
    >> dim(z) is supposed to be c(length(x), length(y)).  This suggests
    >> that the user is supplying the midpoints of the rectangles.  For all
    >> but the outer rectangles this is true.  The outer rectangles,
    >> however, are only displayed in half width.  So it is not possible to
    >> show correctly an image plot of equally-spaced abscissa.  I would
    >> hazard a guess that these kinds of plots make up the bulk of calls
    >> to image() either directly or after a simple transformation (eg
    >> starting with boundary values rather than midpoints).
    >> 
    >> Can I suggest that the code for image() be modified to show full
    >> rectangles for all values on the basis that x and y are midpoints?
    >> According to my code for R (which is a bit out of date!) the minimum
    >> change would require 4 lines to be modified in the function do_image
    >> of plot3d.c.  The alternative, which I think would be more
    >> transparent, would be to call the function do_image with boundary
    >> values having previously made the appropriate calculations in
    >> image() according to whether midpoints or boundary values are
    >> supplied.  Something like this happens in S+ (although not very
    >> transparently!).

    BDR> I needed this in hurry this weekend for some fMRI plots. I've
    BDR> altered image so that if z is m x n, x can be of length m or m+1
    BDR> and y of length n or n+1.  If x is of length m it supplies the
    BDR> midpoints, if of length m+1 it supplies the boundaries of the
    BDR> cells. (All S compatible.)  The internal call is made with the
    BDR> boundary values.  The outer cells are plotted in full width.

Excellent, thank you!

    BDR> The one change is if m=1 or n=1. I reckon that is an error, but S
    BDR> and R previously filled the whole width. Does anyone want that
    BDR> behaviour?

yes, I do.
- If I remember properly, I even spent an hour or so to make this work in R:
 When I was porting the wavethresh package,
 one of the multiresolution plots didn't work in R, first, because  image()
 didn't work for 1x1 images.

- Also, for the matter of completeness and consistency, I think this just
  should work.

    BDR>   At present those cases are an error.
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