Re: [Plplot-devel] PLplot representation fidelity

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

Geoffrey said:

> Bottom line, imo, the 16 bit virtual coordinate thing in PLplot is probably
the most serious "technical" defficiency in PLplot at this time.

> Building a scalable rendering engine might be one way to relieve the
symptoms, but unless we convert to 32 bit virtual coords, I won't regard the
true underlying issue as having really been solved.

I had no idea there was any 16-bit code in PLplot, but I have noticed some
minor character distortions for ordinary example plots that vary from
machine to machine which may be a symptom of the same problem.  In any case
if we can increase the precision of how characters are drawn by eliminating
the 16-bit code I am all for it.  So let's get started!

If there is some low-level but tedious part of the task (i.e., janitorial
work) that needs to be done, I would be glad to help.

One point you should consider; if we are going to this effort in any case,
is there any reason not to go to long long integers (which would translate
to 64-bit integers on 32-bit machines)?  I don't want to be dealing with
32-bit to 64-bit issues 10 years from now because we didn't look ahead.
Also, before you say there is no way we would ever require 64-bit integers
consider Bill Gates' infamous statement that "64k of RAM is all anyone
should ever need."....;-)

Alan

email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902	FAX: 250-721-7715
snail-mail:
Dr. Alan W. Irwin
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055,
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8W 3P6
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