Re: plots for printing

[Randall Skelton <rhskelto(at)atm.ox.ac.uk>]

Screen-shots?  Oh dear, this sounds bad.

Option 1, you can change the plotting device in IDL using the 'set_plot'
command, i.e. (see the IDL Basics Manual p. 13)

IDL> ; save my device
IDL> MYDEVICE=!D.NAME
IDL> ; make some data
IDL> DATA = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
IDL> ; plot to the screen
IDL> PLOT, DATA
IDL> ; plot to a file
IDL> SET_PLOT, 'PS'
IDL> DEVICE, FILENAME='OUTPUT.PS'
IDL> PLOT, DATA
IDL> DEVICE, /CLOSE
IDL> ; reset the standard device
IDL> SET_PLOT, MYDEVICE

See the IDL help for the valid device types.  If all you want to do is
send the plot to your printer, substitute 'printer' for 'ps' in the above.

Option 2, If you want an *image* of the currently displayed IDL graphics
window try something like:

IDL> ; make some data
IDL> DATA = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
IDL> ; plot to the screen
IDL> PLOT, DATA
IDL> ; write a jpeg file
IDL> WRITE_JPEG, 'test.jpeg', TVRD()

Note that you can replace 'write_jpeg' with almost any of the other
'write_' commands (see IDL help for the rest). You should look through the
Using IDL manual (paying attention to 'Part III: Using Direct Graphics').

Alternatively, you may want to order yourself a copy of one of the
numerous IDL programming books available these days.  David Fanning's book
'IDL Programming Techniques, Second Edition' (www.dfanning.com) is an
excellent book to work through and it describes plotting very well.  You
may be interested in downloading a Chapter 9 'Writing an IDL Graphics
Display Program' which describes how create a device-independent,
color-depth independent graphical display program.

Cheers,
Randall

On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Dominik Paul wrote:

> Hello there,
> 
> I need some plots for my report. And I made these plots with IDL (very good
> programm for visualisation). Than I take screen shots of the pictures and
> used it for printing.
> 
> The result was a wuite bad quality. Does somebody know, how I could do this
> in a better way to get a good resolution for printing (maybe 300 dpi)?
> 
> Thanks for your help
> 
> Dom
> 
> --
> ====================================
> Dominik Paul
> Uniklinik Freiburg
> Abt. Nuklearmedizin/PET
> ====================================
> 
> 
>