Re: Easy way to make hard copies at full printer resolution

[Craig Markwardt <craigmnet(at)cow.physics.wisc.edu>]

"Kristian Kjær" <Kristian.Kjaer@Risoe.DK> writes:
> 
> My apologies if this is turning into a FAQ:
> 
>  One thing that makes IDL somewhat inconvenient for _interactive_
> data display and reduction is the lack of a command (equivalent to -
> dare I say it - alt(File)...Print... in MS-Windows programs) to
> produce a hard copy of the current plot with the resolution offered
> by the printer.
> 
>  Ideally I'd like to sit and type into the IDL command prompt, using
> native IDL commands and my own (wrapper, mainly) routines and, when
> a useful plot resulted on the screen, make a hard copy of it without
> any extra trouble.

I would *love* it if the graphics window would simply remember what's
been plotted, and be able to dump that out to the postscript device.
A little print button at the top of the window would do wonders.  Does
this work in Windows?

Sure, it says somewhere in the IDL documentation that this would take
too much memory.  Maybe five years ago, but we aren't in the stone
ages any more.

All of the programs found by Kristian are written in IDL, so
necessarily try to solve the problem at the *front* end, e.g. by
intercepting PLOT commands.  It would be much more simple and elegant
to solve the problem at the back end in the graphics driver.  Has
anybody ever written a graphics driver?

Craig

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Craig B. Markwardt, Ph.D.         EMAIL:    craigmnet@cow.physics.wisc.edu
Astrophysics, IDL, Finance, Derivatives | Remove "net" for better response
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