[Plplot-devel] Offset problems with truetype fonts

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

If you compare the exact same examples using "-dev png -drvopt text" versus
"-dev png" (i.e., with true-type fonts versus Hershey fonts) the offsets
of the characters from the viewports are not consistent.

For a 2D example, try

./x01c -dev png -o test01.png
./x01c -dev png -drvopt text -o test02.png

The y label position is too far away from the y axis for the truetype font.

For a 3D example, try

./x11c -dev png -o test11.png
./x11c -dev png -drvopt text -o test12.png

Both the y axis (to a small extent) and the z axis (to a much larger extent)
are too far away from the axis for the truetype font.

Andrew (Roach), can you verify this problem on (a) the windows plplot
versions available to you (mingw, etc.) and (b) on the Linux plplot version
available to you?  plmtex can be used in the 2D case to compensate for the
truetype offset problems as a temporary workaround, but it would be nice if
all fonts gave the same offset (in character heights) regardless.  For the
3D case this offset problem is a showstopper for truetype fonts since there
is no control of label positioning at all; you are stuck with the default
offset (which is quite wrong for the truetype case, but ok in the Hershey
case).

Alan
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Alan W. Irwin
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org), the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net), the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net), and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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