"set scale" as opposed to "set size" or something else

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

On Sunday 11 February 2007 00:22, Daniel J Sebald wrote:
> set term png size 1280,960
>=20
> the result is a 1280 x 960 PNG image with the same resolution as the=20
> previous 640 x 480 PNG image.  That is, depending on one's viewpoint,=20
> it's as though every plot item has become 1/2 the size relative to=20
> the plot coordinate system.  =20
> I could increase resolution by making the pointsize twice=20
> as big, line thickness twice as big, etc.

I believe that this was the original intent of the "set size" command.
It later got co-opted to implement multiplot mode instead.
The original terminal entry point  term->scale() is still there, however.

It is interesting that Timoth=E9e recently submitted a patchset (#1616945)
to remove this terminal entry, and now you are arguing in effect that
we whould intead resurrect it for its original purpose. =20

So if I may re-phrase your suggestion.  We should add a command
	set scale <multiplier>
that is passed to each terminal.  Terminals capable of uniform scaling
would apply this multiplier to relevant plot elements, including
	font size
	point size
	line width
	dash length

This is not strictly necessary, as all of these can be set separately
for terminals that support them.  But it would add some degree of=20
convenience.

	Ethan


[nit-picking follows]

> Say there were a "resolution #" option that would internally scale line=20
thickness, pointsize, and fonts (have to have a mapping to medium, large,=20
giant... unfortunately the largest font doesn't have very high=20
resolution).

What is this "medium, large, giant" business? =20
Surely you are not still using the old 1999 PNG driver!
We've had support for scalable fonts for about 6 years now.
You can scale up to posterboard size if you want.

See for example the label "Kuen's Surface" in the transparent solids demo
   http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo_4.3/transparent_solids.html
That is an intricate script font scaled up about 3x from the typical
font size used for PNG plots, and it scales beautifully.


=2D-=20
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7742