[R] Autogenerated png, bitmap images

[Tony Vargas]

Bill,

Thanks for the response.  Comments in-line

Tony

Tony Vargas
Cisco Systems
Engineering Computing Services
(408) 525-4113
tvargas at cisco.com

On Tue, 1 Apr 2003, Pikounis, Bill wrote:

> Tony,
>
> > that all the fonts on my graphs get messed up.  Anybody have
> > any nija R
> > commands to make all fonts look great?  Anybody have any idea
> > how to fix
> > this?  So far, no luck on Solaris or Linux making the Xvfb fonts look
>
> I have played with Xvfb and have not seen the same font problem (Mandrake
> 9.0 for Linux, R 1.6.2) generating png's via CGI (my problems are more with
> CGI-secure permissions).  You mentioned running a cron (batch) job -- do you
> see the same problem using R interactively (such as an ssh login with X not
> running)?  Perhaps you can provide some lines of your code of your cron
> script to help the diagnosis?  What is specifically messed up with the
> fonts?

Files are attached.  One of the files shows a creation via cron, one via an ssh sesssion.
Any idea how to make them look the exact same?  The script that I use to
start Xvbg (and call R) is also attached.

>
> Adjusting the pointsize argument in png might help.

I've played with this a little.  Any specific value you suggest?


>
> > is that the bitmap files are enormous compared to the png images.  Any
> > idea how I could make the bmp images smaller (and create
> > faster?) (One of
> > my R bmp generation files is attached.)
>
> As far as bitmaps go, I think that in general the smaller they are, the less
> resolution you will have. But even if you are willing to give that up, you
> might need to delve into ghostscript call options, since my understanding is
> that what bitmap() uses under Linux (and I presume other X11 device
> approaches including Solaris).  See the code for bitmap(), in particular the
> gsexe and cmd objects. (I noticed your setting of some arguments like res in
> your bitmap generation file attachment, but as I guess above, other
> gs-intrinsic flags may be needed.)
>
> Hope that helps,
> Bill
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Bill Pikounis, Ph.D.
>
> Biometrics Research Department
> Merck Research Laboratories
> PO Box 2000, MailDrop RY84-16
> 126 E. Lincoln Avenue
> Rahway, New Jersey 07065-0900
> USA
>
> v_bill_pikounis at merck.com
>
> Phone: 732 594 3913
> Fax: 732 594 1565
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Tony Vargas [mailto:tvargas at cisco.com]
> > Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 9:23 PM
> > To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> > Subject: [R] Autogenerated png, bitmap images
> >
> >
> > I have two questions -
> >
> > 1.  I am trying to create R png graphs via cron.  I have this
> > part working
> > using Xvfb (X virtual frame buffer).  One problem that I
> > have, though, is
> > that all the fonts on my graphs get messed up.  Anybody have
> > any nija R
> > commands to make all fonts look great?  Anybody have any idea
> > how to fix
> > this?  So far, no luck on Solaris or Linux making the Xvfb fonts look
> > good.
> >
> > I was thining of sending an e-mail to the Xfree86 org people.
> >  Haven't seen anything helpful on google so far.
> >
> >
> > 2.  I really like the png solution that I have working,
> > above, except for
> > the fonts.  Assumming that I can't get the virtual frame
> > buffer working,
> > I guess I can switch to bitmap devices.  One thing I have
> > noticed, though,
> > is that the bitmap files are enormous compared to the png images.  Any
> > idea how I could make the bmp images smaller (and create
> > faster?) (One of
> > my R bmp generation files is attached.)
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Tony
> >
> > Tony Vargas
> > Cisco Systems
> > Engineering Computing Services
> > (408) 525-4113
> > tvargas at cisco.com
> >
>
>
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-------------- next part --------------
#!/bin/bash
#Shell script to generate nightly tgu graphs

#Need to setup a virtual X11 frame buffer so that R can print image files.  Will not work without.  In addition, this is why graph generation needs to be run as root - so that the frame buffer can be created

TERM="vt100"
XVFB_HOME="/nfs/ecs/perf/opt/tgu_perf/XVFB"
export TERM
export XVFB_HOME



#Updated font path - so graphs look better
$XVFB_HOME/Xvfb :101 -co $XVFB_HOME/rgb -fp /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/F3bitmaps/,/usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/,/usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/,/usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/,/usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/ -sp /usr/X/server/etc/SecurityPolicy &


export DISPLAY=localhost:101:0


AppBaseDir="/nfs/ecs/perf/opt/tgu_perf/bin"
BaseDir="/auto/solperf/tgu"
BaseRFileDir="$BaseDir/RFileBase"
BaseImageDir="$BaseDir/Images"
BaseThumbsDir="$BaseDir/Thumbs"

Month='/bin/date +"%h"'
Year='/bin/date +"%Y"'
Day='/bin/date +"%d"'
Month_Year_Combo=`/bin/date +"%h.%Y"`


#Create a directory for every month for both images, thumbnails and RFiles - if do this, no need to do a rm every night

if [ ! -d "$BaseRFileDir/$Month_Year_Combo" ] ; then 
     mkdir $BaseRFileDir/$Month_Year_Combo
     mkdir $BaseThumbsDir/$Month_Year_Combo
     mkdir $BaseImageDir/$Month_Year_Combo
fi
 
#Generate R config files

$AppBaseDir/tgu_r_mon_gen

cd $BaseRFileDir/$Month_Year_Combo
for i in `ls`; do
   /usr/cisco/bin/R < $i --no-save --silent 

 done



#####Stuff below is just junk

##$XVFB_HOME/Xvfb :101 -co $XVFB_HOME/rgb -fp $XVFB_HOME/fonts/misc/,$XVFB_HOME/fonts/Speedo/,$XVFB_HOME/fonts/Type1/,$XVFB_HOME/fonts/75dpi/,$XVFB_HOME/fonts/100dpi/ -sp $XVFB_HOME/SecurityPolicy &

#$XVFB_HOME/Xvfb :101 -co $XVFB_HOME/rgb -fp /usr/X/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/,/usr/X/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/,/usr/X/lib/X11/fonts/Type3/,/usr/X/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/,/usr/X/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/,/usr/X/lib/X11/fonts/CSL/,/usr/X/lib/X11/fonts/misc/ -sp $XVFB_HOME/SecurityPolicy &