Autogenerated png, bitmap images - R-help

Wed, Apr 2, 2003 7:05 AM #

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.

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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