[R] Creating images without X11

[Barry Rowlingson]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 5:14 AM, Sharpie <chuck at sharpsteen.net> wrote:

> I had this exact same problem last summer when attempting to set up an
> automated process involving image generation on a remote server.  Since I
> didn't have admin rights to the server, I ended up switching to the Cairo
> package for image generation as it uses the Cairo library rather than X11 as
> the back end.
>
> The other solution involved setting some sort of obscure, arcane X11
> permission that I can't recall right now.  All I can recall is that finding
> it was a frustrating half-day of Google searching and digging through man
> pages.

 It should be that 'cairo' is the default type for png (and other
bitmap) generation:

> getOption("bitmapType")
[1] "cairo"

 The png() function has an option for 'type='. If you use type="cairo"
(which is got from getOption, should be default) then an X server
isn't needed. If you try type="X11" then one is. Apple fanboys can try
type="quartz".

 Again, this is all convoluted with what was compiled into R, and what
does capabilities() etc tell us.

 No word back from the original poster yet - Jillian Kozyra, are we helping???

Barry