Re: bug in terminals affected by 'set size'

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Thursday 06 October 2005 02:41 pm, Petr Mikulik wrote:
> Shouldn't there be "set term post eps scale nx,ny" to scale the canvas to a 
> given size? (Gnuplot could be used for making highway billboards :-)

This is the sort of example I originally had in mind.  If you are trying to
scale up an eps figure uniformly, to highway billboard size for example,
you don't *need* a scale parameter because the eps format is inherently
scalable.  Yes, the lettering will be half a meter tall and the lines a
couple of cm thick, but that way they can be read by passing motorists.

What I have learned is that people want to change the size of the
figure *without* scaling the font size or line widths.  The current
"set size" command does this, but does not do a very consistent job of it.
 
> Further, what I miss is a "scale", mainly for an inset figure inside another 
> figure (i.e., in multiplot). It would scale the figure with all linewidth, 
> fonts etc. Or rather "fontscale"...

Are you saying that you do, or do not, want the fonts to change size if
the figure changes size?

I should also point out that the existing PostScript and eps output
offers a possible easy fix to at least part of this dilemma if you
are willing to use an editor.  The following line appears near the
very top of the output file:
 /gnulinewidth 5.000 def

If you are planning to scale up your plot by a factor of 2 and
don't want the line widths to became twice as thick, you can replace
that with
 /gnulinewidth 2.500 def


We could, I think, do exactly the same with font sizes by introducing
a global multiplier in the header
 /gnufontsize 1.000 def





-- 
Ethan A Merritt       merritt@u.washington.edu
Biomolecular Structure Center
Mailstop 357742
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195