On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 7:11 PM, Sean Carmody <seancarmody@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have been plotting the same charts using png on a Windows machine
> and on a Mac OSX and the quality of the resulting images, particularly
> in relation to the fonts, look far superior in the plots produced on
> the Mac. Is there any way I can enhance the quality of the plots
> produced on the Windows machine? I have also tried using win.metafile
> on the Windows machine and the quality looks the same as the png. The
> obvious solution would be to just use the Mac, but that's not an
> option in the office!
>
> I have been searching the archives on this topic to no avail (although
> I can vouch for the perspicacity of my choice of search terms), so any
> help would be greatly appreciated!
>

Your issue probably has to do with antialiasing. See number 8 in this list:
http://blog.revolution-computing.com/2009/01/10-tips-for-making-your-r-graphics-look-their-best.html

You can supposedly work around it using the Cairo package and CairoPNG()
instead of png(), as shown here:
http://www.mailund.dk/index.php/2009/01/25/antialias-plotting-in-r-using-cairo/

However, in my experience, the fonts don't work right in Windows XP with
CairoPNG. You can see it in this chart I made using different rendering
methods on different platforms (scroll down to CairoPNG).
http://stdout.org/~winston/X/r-antialias/pch.html

I posted about a related issue a little while back but never got a
response.... hopefully someone else will be able to explain how to make it
work!

-Winston

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