PlotPar

NAME

PlotPar - set plot parameters
SYNOPSIS

PlotPar expr expr expr expr expr
    ( 0 | 1 ) ( 0 | 1 ) ( 0 | 1 ) ( 0 | 1 )
    expr expr expr
DESCRIPTION

Set size and options for plots. The first argument gives the width of the paper, the second one the height. The third argument gives the width of the plot, the fourth one the height. If one of the plot sizes is 0, it is calculated to correspond to the dimensions (aspect ratio) of the window. The plot is centered on the paper.

The current unit for these sizes is shown in the prompt, it can be changed with the PlotUnit command. The default paper size also depends on the current unit.

The fifth argument selects the horizontal resolution used for saving image (TIFF, JPEG, PNG) files.

The first option switches stereo plotting on or off.

The second option switches shading and hidden surface elimination for the plot. The third only has an influence if shading is switched on. If it is selected, a full hidden surface elimination is done. This can take a few minutes for complex plots, but it is necessary to produce perfect results as soon as the scene contains spheres, cylinders or primitives. If it is not selected, a simple depth sorting is used, which is much faster, but the result can contain slight errors. For important plots (publications), this option must always be switched on.

The fourth option selects whether the plot is rotated by 90 degrees to produce a landscape plot. Note that the size of the plot (arguments 3 and 4) is still given in the original orientation of the plot, before rotation. The size of the paper is given in the orientation used by the printer, which is normally portrait. So e. g. good size for a landscape plot on A3 format are 29.7 42 0 26.

The third but last parameter select the precision (resolution) of the plot. See DrawPrec for an explanation of this parameter.

The second but last parameter selects a gamma correction parameter. 1.0 will leave the colors unchanged, values less than 1.0 will make the colors brighter, values greater than 1.0 will make the colors darker. Note that the "correct" gamma value depends on the output device used, so using gamma correction when producing the file is in principal not the right thing to do. We offer this possibilty for convenience sake, it is often difficult to do decent gamma correction on the output file (e. g. for PostScript) with other possibilities.

The last parameter selects the quality for JPEG plots. Recommended values are between 50 (strong compression with reasonable quality) and 95 (excellent quality).

EXAMPLES

PlotPar 21 29.7 18 0 1000 0 0 1 0 3 1.0 75
PlotPar 21 29.7 0 18 2000 0 1 1 1 3 0.7 60
PlotPar 29.7 42 0 26 1500 0 1 1 1 4 0.5 90
SEE ALSO

PlotUnit, PlotPs, PlotFm*, PlotTiff, PlotJpeg, PlotPng, DrawPrec

DATE

960321


Reto Koradi, kor@mol.biol.ethz.ch