Re: Multiple surface plotting

[davidf(at)dfanning.com (David Fanning)]

Paul van Delst (paul.vandelst@noaa.gov) writes:

> I want to plot out a number of intersecting surfaces, different colours, some shaded, some gridded.
> After some inquiries, I was lead to Struan Gray's excellent web page and once I figured out how to
> use the Z-buffer, I had great looking plots of exactly what I wanted .... onscreen (or in a web
> page).
> 
> When I output to a file using the recommended TVRD() from z-buffer and then tv'ing after a
> set_plot,'PS', or writing the tvrd() result to a png file is a result that looks quite awful when
> printed.
> 
> What I would dearly love to do would be to create postscript output directly rather than doing a
> TVRD() of the z-buffer and then tv'ing it to PS output. Does anyone know if this is possible and if
> so, how? All the z-buffer exmaples I've seen use TVRD() and TV for output.

Well, here are two suggestions:

   (1) That Z-buffer can be made pretty darn big. Big enough,
       probably, so that you could make nice PostScript output.

   (2) Do the same thing in object graphics. The object graphics
       system *is* a Z-buffer!

Cheers,

David

-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
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