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Plot in real unit (1:1)

5 messages · Christian Brandstätter, Jim Lemon, Eik Vettorazzi

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Dear List, 

Is it possible to plot in R in "real" units? I would like to draw a
plot on A4 paper, where 1 plot unit would be a mm in reality. Is
something like that possible? I would also like to be able to scale the
plot in x and y direction. 
Background: For a project I would have to draw around 65 fast sketches
of elevation courves. 

Copied from here, due to no answer: https://stackoverflow.com/questions
/50606797/plot-in-real-units-mm

Thank you!
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Hi Christian,
When I have to do something like this, I usually write it in
Postscript using this:

/def mm 2.8346 mul

that converts a dimension in mm to points (1/72 inch). However, this
won't work in R. It may be possible to set up the device like this:

postscript("myfile.ps",paper="a4")
par(mar=c(0,0,0,0))
# generate a blank plot
plot(0,type="n",xlim=c(0,210),ylim=c(0,297),axes=FALSE)
# display lines, etc. in mm with 0,0 at the bottom left
dev.off()

The resulting file should be printable. Warning, I don't have time to
test this right now.

Jim



On Thu, Jun 7, 2018 at 12:00 AM, Christian Brandst?tter
<bran.chri at gmail.com> wrote:
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Hi Christian,
Well, it almost worked. I suspect that the postscript device adds some
padding to account for the printable area, so with a bit of
experimentation, The following example seems to do what you want. When
I printed the resulting file from the GIMP, the box and diamond were
the correct dimensions.

postscript("test.ps",paper="a4",horizontal=FALSE)
par(mai=c(1.713,0,1.713,0),xaxs="i",yaxs="i")
plot(0,type="n",xlim=c(0,190),ylim=c(0,190),xlab="",axes=FALSE)
segments(c(0,95),c(95,0),c(190,95),c(95,190))
segments(c(45,95,145,95),c(95,145,95,45),
 c(95,145,95,45),c(145,95,45,95))
box()
dev.off()

Jim
On Thu, Jun 7, 2018 at 8:16 AM, Jim Lemon <drjimlemon at gmail.com> wrote:
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Thanks a lot!

Jim Lemon <drjimlemon at gmail.com> schrieb am Do., 7. Juni 2018, 06:13:

  
  
#
How about this:

in2mm<-25.4 # scale factor to convert inches to mm

pdf("test.pdf",width=8.3,height=11.7)
pin<-par("pin")
plot(c(0,pin[1]*in2mm),c(0,pin[2]*in2mm), type="n", xaxs="i", yaxs="i")
lines(c(10,10),c(0,10))
text(11,5,"1 cm", adj=0)

lines(c(0,40),c(20,20))
text(20,24,"4 cm")

polygon(c(50,50,70,70),c(50,70,70,50))
text(60,60,"2x2 cm")
dev.off()

cheers

Am 06.06.2018 um 16:00 schrieb Christian Brandst?tter: