Producing PNG on Debian Linux (was the false bug report, Re: [Rd] png output requires X connection (PR#1165))

[Prof Brian D Ripley]

On Sun, 18 Nov 2001, Telford wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 11, 2001 at 07:01:35PM +0100, rmurray@debian.org wrote:
> > This is a wishlist item more than a bug.  I wish it worked the way the
> > output is sharp and clear.
>
> You might be up against the ghostscript anti-alias filter which
> (IMHO) produces crappy, fuzzy output -- then again some people think
> anti-alias is a feature, go figure. Anyhow you can turn it off and
> get sharp, clear output from ghostscript.

As far as I am aware it is off when bitmap() is used, and Language.htm says

<dt><b><tt>TextAlphaBits, GraphicsAlphaBits (usually read-only)</tt></b>
<dd>The number of bits of anti-aliasing information for text or graphics
respectively.  Legal values are 1 (no anti-aliasing, the default for most
devices), 2, or 4.

On all my systems (Linux, Solaris, Windows)

> bitmap("test.png")
> plot(1:10)
> graphics.off()

gives `sharp and clear' output.  I am using up-to-date GhostScript
(7.00 or 6.51): perhaps *this* is the bug that needs to reported to Debian?

> I agree it would be nice if the PNG output was not directly tied
> to the GUI but there are plenty of ways to get around the problem.

I seem to have to keep saying this!  PNG output is *not* `directly tied to
the GUI'.  On Unix-alikes, one of the two devices I provided for you is,
and only one.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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