Re: st: Hatched bars, again

[Sergiy Radyakin <serjradyakin@gmail.com>]

Dear Dr. Wolfe,

there is nothing impossible in getting hatching effects in Stata.

About a year ago I've posted a -twoway parea- graphing command that
has a feature of pattern fills to the SSC archive.

To download type: findit parea

Here are some examples:
   http://img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=patternsih3.png
   http://img132.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pareamapug3.png

Please ignore the unrelated advertisements displayed by the free image
hosting site and click the image to see it in full, otherwise the
patterns may be distorted during the scale-down procedures implemented
in the browsers (e.g. IE).

Currently I did only twoway parea as an extended version of twoway
area, and not the other types of graphs, as I needed it to work with
maps in Stata.

One thing to remember, however: though the patterns look like patterns
on the screen, they will be scaled down in print if you export in
vector format. E.g. if the step between the hatch lines is 10 pixels,
and you see it as a pattern, then once printed at 600 dpi, this will
be only 1/60th of an inch between the lines, which is optically much
smaller distance (typical reduction is about 10 times, or 72/600 but
might be different). However the eye typically perceives this small
pattern just as a shade of grey (which is done using only two basic
colors: black and white). If you want to have a distinct pattern, use
export with a raster format, e.g. PNG.

Hope this helps

Best regards, Sergiy Radyakin




On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Fred Wolfe
<fwolfe@arthritis-research.org> wrote:
> Although this subject has been aired before, I though this letter from
> a journal copy editor to me might put the issues practically. I sent a
> paired -graph box - with three shades of grey using scheme(s2mono).
> Not one should worry, as I will fix it with the editor, but the letter
> is interesting.
>
> "Dr. Wolfe,
>
> With respect, the artwork sent for this article  does not meet minimum
> standards for print reproduction <snip> ...  you will note the fine
> lines and details of the text and art are blurred and turning 'grey'
> or disappearing. And complicating the problem, there's a frame of grey
> shading all around the 2 graphs (an artefact from the original slide)
> that will show up in print as a distracting mess of shadow.
>
> As a general guideline, artwork intended for publication should be
> prepared in black and white only, with no grey-colored shading or
> lines, because material in grey cannot be printed clearly with good
> contrast.  Where a different 'color' is needed to differentiate data
> or columns, cross-hatching effects in black and white are useful.
>
> As well, for best quality reproduction, it is best if charts and
> graphs are sent to us in the original program in which they were
> created (such as MicroSoft Word or Excel), not as "image scans" in
> MicroSoft Document format. When an image is scanned, it inevitably
> loses some sharpness of detail. But with artwork in the original
> program we are sometimes able to make adjustments for clarity of
> print.
>
> The department of publications at  one of the authors' institutions
> may be able to assist in preparation of  good quality artwork that
> communicates your data effectively.
>
> Is it possible that better quality artwork could be prepared somehow?"
>
>
>
> --
> Fred Wolfe
> National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases
> Wichita, Kansas
> NDB Office  +1 316 263 2125 Ext 0
> Research Office +1 316 686 9195
> fwolfe@arthritis-research.org
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