Re: st: Graph output: wmf to gif?

["b. water" <barleywater@hotmail.com>]

dear statalisters,

sorry if my comments revealled my ignorance in this matter. my setup: w98se, 
office 97 and stata 7 & 8. i used stata graphs output a lot for final output 
in either word docs or ppt slides. i have always used copy graphs and pasted 
as metafiles into office97 without problems. the picture appeared as they 
appeared in stata windows. i do not use coloring options though, and all my 
stata graphic outputs are produced by stata default settings (whatever 
colors it gave me). for word docs that we end up converting to pdf, again 
there is no problem there. although there is an option for ps printing on my 
printer, i never have to ever use it.

i am therefore just a little bit puzzled or maybe just plain ignorant of a 
wider potential issue/problem with stata graphics. so may i just ask why is 
there a need to convert to eps, gif, bmp, tiff etc. maybe it is unix or mac 
os issues, if so pls ignore my time wasting comments and queries.

cheers,
bw





> From: cnguyen@stata.com
> Reply-To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Subject: Re: st: Graph output: wmf to gif?
> Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 15:38:47 -0600
>
> "David LB Schwappach" <dlb@h-ero.de> wrote:
>
> > my original query has inspired an interesting discussion on the list. I
> > agree with Lee Sieswerda and others, that eps is best for paper
> > publication of graphs, such as journal submissions. However, as initial
> > format for gif conversion for web publication, my experiences are not as
> > good as reported by Lee. Through my eyes, the result are never as sharp
> > and precise as wmf to gif converted graphs (this may be an issue
>
> Actually, the opposite is true but you are correct about the sharpness.  
> EPS
> is more precise than WMF and therein lies the problem.  EPS uses points as 
> a
> unit of measurement (which is 1/72 of an inch) and you can have fractional
> points.  WMF and PICT use pixels as a unit of measurement with 72 pixels 
> per
> inch (in the ideal resolution) and of course pixel sizes are integers.
>
> When you convert an EPS file to a bitmap, the EPS converter tries to 
> maintain
> the size of the line relative to the size of the image.  Because a pixel is
> the smallest screen unit, it tries to fool the eye into thinking a line is
> thin using antialasing and drawing it "lighter".  A solid black one pixel 
> line
> next to a light gray one pixel line appears "thicker" even though they're 
> the
> same pixel thickness.  The minimum line thickness in WMF is 1 pixel so 
> smaller
> images appear "sharper".
>
> I do agree with David that his examples seem to show that WMF to GIF 
> appears
> to give better results.  However, the EPS image appears to be slightly
> smaller, the font used seems to be wider (and thinner in stroke) giving 
> less
> room to the actual plot area.  You typically don't get the benefit of
> antialiasing when using WMF (I pasted a graph into Photoshop and curves and
> circles remained jagged).  I'd also like to point out that the last bar
> actually shows up in the EPS graph whereas the WMF graph shows nothing.
>
> Anyway, I still contend that EPS to gif is the better way to go as the 
> results
> at http://www.stata.com/stata8/graphics.html show but it requires the image 
> be
> large enough.  Any graph that contains more than just horizontal and 
> vertical
> lines as well as thick lines should look better.  Take a close look at
> http://www.stata.com/stata8/g/twoarea.gif and
> http://www.stata.com/stata8/g/g_linee.gif.
>
> btw, you should be able to print a PDF file to a non-PostScript printer 
> using
> Acrobat Reader as a kind of a cheapy RIP (Raster Image Processor).  I used 
> to
> do that with that with a lot of our color PostScript files that I needed to
> print on a color non-PostScript printer.  You can avoid paying the often
> expensive PostScript option on many printers doing this.
>
> -Chinh Nguyen
>  cnguyen@stata.com
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