[R] Autogenerated png, bitmap images

[Pikounis, Bill]

Hi Tony,
I looked over the files and I am puzzled why the difference in font sizes.
Unfortunately my knowledge about X window configurations is pretty scant.
(You mention in the shell script comments that you run the job as root, so I
wonder if that makes any difference to X..I doubt it).  I recall some
threads on X devices and font sizes in the R-help archives, so you may wish
to consult there. You also suggested an XFree86 list, and I think that would
be a good idea to post.

But as a potential workaround thru R, perhaps the cex settings (see ?par),
like cex, cex.axis, cex.lab, cex.main, and cex.sub could help you adjust the
font-sizes down to what you would like.

> > Adjusting the pointsize argument in png might help.
> 
> I've played with this a little.  Any specific value you suggest?

I use pointsize = 10 in my set-up for png() with Xvfb, which is somewhat
different from the default (12).  It is hard to judge if that will reduce
your size enough.

Hope that helps,
Bill


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tony Vargas [mailto:tvargas at cisco.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 2:40 PM
> To: Pikounis, Bill
> Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: RE: [R] Autogenerated png, bitmap images
> 
> 
> 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


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