Re: [Matplotlib-users] Intersecting polygons

[Jerzy K. <jer...@un...>]

Le 23/08/2013 03:32, Chris Beaumont a écrit :
> It looks like some programs (like illustrator, and pdf2ps) are 
> semi-smart about handling transparency when converting to ps. Both 
> have their quirks (illustrator seems to mess up the bounding box, 
> pdf2ps makes the text look worse/fuzzy).
>
> Is this the recommended/best strategy?

Who can really say what is a/the recommended strategy?...

I am almost certain that the process described by Jon Ramsey - passing 
through jpeg - is better to be avoided. It probably works decently, and 
the JPEG is quite economic, but the conversion of a raster into EPS 
produces large files, and - as you said - the rasterization makes it not 
so scalable. And in general, a lossy compression is methodologically 
wrong here...

I compared on a sample picture (similar to yours, but simpler, from the 
matplotlib documentation) these two methods:

1. Generate pdf, use pdf2ps (and convert to eps)
2. Generate svg, use inkscape to export eps.

The results are visually comparable. I don't notice much of fuzziness; 
perhaps this is the anti-aliasing on your display?
My version, the passage through svg produces a file which is more than 3 
times shorter.

Good luck.

Jerzy Karczmarczuk

PS. Try to convince the Dark Powers of the journal you send your work, 
that they modernize their processing and accept PDF.