matplotlib-users

[Matplotlib-users] Bounding boxes in EPS files...

[Fernando P. <Fer...@co...>]

Hi all,

I'm enjoying the new toy (real LaTeX support), and after running the 
examples/tex_demo, I noticed the bounding boxes aren't quite right.  I know 
that Darren and John have struggled a lot with this issue, and I don't know 
what the true solution should be.  But I've seen similar problems in the past 
with Gnuplot (when making square aspect ratio plots), and I had this lying around:

def eps_fix_bbox(fname):
     """Fix the bounding box of an eps file by running ps2eps on it.

     If its name ends in .eps, the original file is removed.

     This is particularly useful for plots made by Gnuplot with square aspect
     ratio: there is a bug in Gnuplot which makes it generate a bounding box
     which is far wider than the actual plot.

     This function assumes that ps2eps is installed in your system."""

     # note: ps2ps and eps2eps do NOT work, ONLY ps2eps works correctly. The
     # others make output with bitmapped fonts, which looks horrible.
     print 'Fixing eps file: <%s>' % fname
     xsys('ps2eps -f -q -l %s' % fname)
     if fname.endswith('.eps'):
         os.rename(fname+'.eps',fname)

those of you running IPython can get it simply via:

from IPython.Gnuplot2 import eps_fix_bbox

I don't claim that it does the right thing everywhere, but a few tests seemed 
to give reasonable results.  I don't know if it will help others, but it works 
for me, so here it goes.

Cheers,

f

Re: [Matplotlib-users] Bounding boxes in EPS files...

[Darren D. <dd...@co...>]

On Wednesday 08 June 2005 1:29 am, Fernando Perez wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm enjoying the new toy (real LaTeX support), and after running the
> examples/tex_demo, I noticed the bounding boxes aren't quite right.

Hi Fernando,

Which version of ghostscript are you using? We had trouble with bboxes usin=
g a=20
version older than ghostscript-8.16.=20

I use ghostscript's epswrite device to convert a latex-generated postscript=
 to=20
eps. It converts the fonts to bitmaps, as you pointed out, but you can=20
increase the resolution in rc with ps.distiller.res: I have it set to 6000,=
=20
and the files are not too big.

Would you send me a copies of the bad eps and the fixed version, and also a=
=20
copy of ps2eps? I don't have that program on my system, and was not able to=
=20
find it on the web.

Thanks,
Darren

Re: [Matplotlib-users] Bounding boxes in EPS files...

[Matt N. <new...@ca...>]

Darren, Fernando,

I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to try out the new tex/latex
support, and am really looking forward to it.  Thanks!!

I've used scripts to convert gnuplot/ps-latex to eps and png for
too many years (and will be thrilled to replace them with
matplotlib scripts).  For the EPS bbox problem from dvips, I've
had good luck running
   gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=bbox  my.eps
on the eps file generated from 
   dvips -E ...  -o my.eps my.dvi 
The bbox output from 'gs -sDEVICE=bbox' can then be used to
rewrite the eps file.  It's definitely a kludge and involves
temporary files (this might be unavoidable, and tex/latex uses
lots of these anyway), but the results seem good, even with
relatively old versions of ghostscript.

I don't know if that's better than Fernando's suggestion or not,
but since the PS backend already uses gs (I think), it might be
worth considering.

Thanks!

--Matt

PS: For eps->png, I've been quite happy running 
     convert -antialias -density 300 my.eps my.png
Maybe that's a reasonable alternative to dvipng??

Re: [Matplotlib-users] Bounding boxes in EPS files...

[Fernando P. <Fer...@co...>]

Darren Dale wrote:
> On Wednesday 08 June 2005 1:29 am, Fernando Perez wrote:
> 
>>Hi all,
>>
>>I'm enjoying the new toy (real LaTeX support), and after running the
>>examples/tex_demo, I noticed the bounding boxes aren't quite right.
> 
> Which version of ghostscript are you using? We had trouble with bboxes using a 
> version older than ghostscript-8.16. 

Ah, that could be it.  Fedora 3 comes stock with:

[~]> rpm -qa | grep ghost
ghostscript-fonts-5.50-13
ghostscript-7.07-33

> I use ghostscript's epswrite device to convert a latex-generated postscript to 
> eps. It converts the fonts to bitmaps, as you pointed out, but you can 
> increase the resolution in rc with ps.distiller.res: I have it set to 6000, 
> and the files are not too big.

Mh, I dind't point that out: I didn't even know you could do it :)

> Would you send me a copies of the bad eps and the fixed version, and also a 
> copy of ps2eps? I don't have that program on my system, and was not able to 
> find it on the web.

Here goes. As it turns out, ps2eps is a simple perl script which I got god 
knows when.  So people won't actually have it on their systems, it's something 
that lives in /usr/local/bin on my box, sorry.

But no worries.  I can lie with using ps2eps for now, until I can upgrade to a 
moer current ghostscript.

Cheers,

f