[Rd] problem with png() and large dimensions on some 32-bit Windows machines

[Simon Urbanek]

Dan,

the Windows build of R has no back-end choices, so the error essentially comes from a system call which means that Windows simply cannot provide the resources. Have you tried let's say Cairo alternative on the same machine? [If you want to test it, please use install.packages("Cairo",,"http://rforge.net") ] That doesn't depend on the OS resources, only on RAM so it may be in theory more scalable.

Cheers,
Simon



On Mar 29, 2011, at 9:10 PM, Dan Tenenbaum wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I encountered this:
> 
>> png(file=tempfile(), width=1165, height=12983)
> Error in png(file = tempfile(), width = 1165, height = 12983) :
>  unable to start png() device
> In addition: Warning messages:
> 1: In png(file = tempfile(), width = 1165, height = 12983) :
>  Unable to allocate bitmap
> 2: In png(file = tempfile(), width = 1165, height = 12983) :
>  opening device failed
>> 
> 
> On the following system:
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.13.0 alpha (2011-03-18 r54865)
> Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
> 
> locale:
> [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
> [2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
> [4] LC_NUMERIC=C
> [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
> 
> This is a Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition Service Pack 2 system
> with 3GB of RAM.
> 
> On another system, the command works fine. Info from that system:
> 
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.13.0 alpha (2011-03-27 r55091)
> Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
> 
> locale:
> [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
> [2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
> [4] LC_NUMERIC=C
> [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
> Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with 4GB of RAM.
> 
> The command also worked fine on a system with only 2GB of RAM, but I don't
> have further information about that system at the moment. It suggests though
> that the amount of RAM is not the sole factor involved.
> 
> Sorry this may not be the most reproducible problem, but I hope this is
> useful nonetheless.
> Dan
> 
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> 
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