Re: [Plplot-general] Axis label scaling problem

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

On 2013-01-30 15:16-0600 RM wrote:

> We've been having a lot of trouble trying to create plots with readable axis numbers for "non-standard" plot aspect ratio's.  [I say
> non-standard, because plplot seems to be set up to support an aspect ratio of 4x3.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.]
> 
> We'd like to create plots that are resizable -- not infinitely resizable -- but resizable in a few fixed increments.  This means we
> create plots that are sometimes either more rectangular or more square than 4x3.
> 
> The problem is that the Axis numbering does not handle a square aspect ratio well at all.
> 
> The Axis numbers appear to scale off the *vertical* size of the plot window -- which in the case of a square-ish plot, causes the
> numbers to appear unnaturally large and often run into one another.
> 
> Please see the following example of an identical plot scaled to two different aspect ratios (heights).  Both plots are the same width,
> but the taller version creates enormous axis numbers that run into each other.
>  http://imageshack.us/a/img259/5944/plotteraxisproblem.png

>

Those character sizes seem unusual so you may be running into a bug for a
particular device driver or you may be specifying aspect ratio in an
unsupported way.  So exactly what device driver are you using to
create your plots, and for a given plot exactly how do you change the
aspect ratio?

I get reasonable looking character sizes for

examples/c/x01c -dev xcairo -a 1.
examples/c/x01c -dev xcairo -a 2.

Do you also replicate those good results for that device?

> Or, are there any plans to include the ability to rotate the x-axis numbers 45 degrees (like gnuplot) to avoid issues like these?

No plans that I am aware of for the generic API, but PLplot does have
the ability to use custom axis labelling that is implemented by the
user. So basically you have complete labelling freedom.  The key
function you have to call to set it up is
http://plplot.sourceforge.net/docbook-manual/plplot-html-5.9.9/plslabelfunc.html.
Also take a look at example 19 to see an example of how to use that
plslabelfunc capability.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

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

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); 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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