The Plotutils Package - Non-Square Plots

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.

## Rotated, non-square and displaced plots

To rotate the plotting box by 90 degrees counterclockwise on your graphics display, you would add ``--rotation 90'` to the `graph` command line. You may also specify ``--rotation 180'`, to produce an upside-down plot, or ``--rotation 270'`.

To alter the linear dimensions of the plotting box, and also to position it in a different part of the display, you could do something like

    graph -T ps -h .3 -w .6 -r .1 -u .1 < ascii_data_file > plot.ps

Here the ``-h'` and ``-w'` options specify the height and width of the plotting box, and the ``-r'` and ``-u'` options indicate how far up and to the right the lower left corner of the plotting box should be positioned. All dimensions are expressed as fractions of the size of the graphics display, which by convention is a square. By default, the height and width of the plotting box equal 0.6, and the `upward shift' and the `rightward shift' equal 0.2. So the above example will produce a plot that is half as tall as usual. Compared to its usual position, the plot will be shifted slightly downward and to the left.

Several command-line options specify sizes or dimensions as fractions of the size of the plotting box, rather than as fractions of the size of the display. For example, ``-S 3 .01'` specifies that the plotting symbols for the following dataset should be of type #3, and should have a font size equal to 0.01, i.e. 0.01 times the minimum dimension (height or width) of the plotting box. If the ``-h'` or ``-w'` options are employed to expand or contract the plot, such sizes or dimensions will scale in tandem. That is presumably the right thing to do.

The ``-h'`, ``-w'`, ``-r'`, and `-u` options may be combined with the ``--rotation'` option. If they appear together, the plotting box is first positioned, and then rotated. In fact, ``--rotation'` specifies how the plot should be mapped to the graphics display, rather than how the plot is designed.

The `graphics display' is an abstraction. For `graph -T X`, it is a window on an X display. For `graph -T pnm` and `graph -T gif`, it is a square or rectangular bitmap. In these three cases, the size of the graphics display can be set by using the `--bitmap-size` option, or by setting the `BITMAPSIZE` environment variable. For `graph -T tek`, the graphics display is a square region occupying the central part of a Tektronix display. (Tektronix displays are 4/3 times as wide as they are high.) For `graph -T ai` and `graph -T ps`, by default it is a square region centered on an 8.5in by 11in page (US letter size), occupying its full width with allowance being made for margins. For `graph -T fig`, by default it is a square region of the same size, positioned in the upper left corner of an `xfig` display. For `graph -T pcl` and `graph -T hpgl`, by default it is a square region of the same size, with position and orientation on the page being controlled by environment variables. The page size used by `graph -T ai`, `graph -T ps`, `graph -T fig`, `graph -T pcl`, and `graph -T hpgl` can be set by using the `--page-size` option, or by setting the environment variable `PAGESIZE`. For example, setting `PAGESIZE` to "a4" would position the graphics display appropriately on an A4-size page (21cm by 29.7cm).

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.