[GRASS5] rgb color support in ps.map ?

[Michael Barton]

I'm sure that the updates discussed will be very helpful to many.

I'd like to list a request in a little different direction however, that I
think would help even more people.

Is there any way to create a postscript output driver for a monitor window?
Sending a monitor window (at whatever its current resolution is) to a
postscript file, and then to a printer, would be very useful. This could
work like d.png. But even doing it as graphic output (rather than the nicer
ps.map output) would be a big help to many.

Michael
__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton



> From: Hamish <hamish_nospam at yahoo.com>
> Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 12:39:29 +1200
> To: Moritz Lennert <mlennert at club.worldonline.be>
> Cc: <grass5 at grass.itc.it>
> Subject: Re: [GRASS5] rgb color support in ps.map ?
> 
>> I wouldn't call myself "desperate" ;-), but in the effort of
>> creating a ps.map version of the legend created by d.vect.thematic
>> it would be necessary for the rectangle object...
> 
> 
> Ok, I looked at doing that but specifically didn't add it to the
> rectangle instruction when I was working with that instruction some
> weeks ago for two reasons:
> 
> a) I had been thinking about it as a backdrop to draw things on, not as
> a foreground object itself. Basic solid colors are usually what is
> wanted in this case. I now see that people might want to use the
> rectangle command for foreground objects too, and a background color of
> "none" would also be useful.
> 
> b) Changing it would mean changing the format of the plotting file
> (add_to_plfile()). I didn't know if this was just an internal ps.map
> thing or had links to other paint commands and so was a bit loath to
> make a change which would break something else.
> 
> For what you want to do, I would think it better not to use a filled
> 'rectangle' but rather use the 'point' command to place an icon of type
> basic/box at the x% y%. Looking at the code I see I didn't change this
> one either re. RGB due to the same plotfile format change. I am more
> motivated to fix this first.
> 
> I though there was a message by me in the mailing list archives from
> mid-June on this but it eludes my searches.
> 
> 
>> I also think that ideally ps.map should have a consistent behaviour
>> across all elements, but that's easy to say while I depend on other
>> to do it ;-)
> 
> A worthy goal, for all of GRASS.
> 
>> You can also try to briefly explain what needs to be done, and I'll
>> have a first attempt at doing it myself...
> 
> It isn't that hard to do, copying in Radim's vector RGB parsing into
> ps/ps.map/r_plt.c from eg r_vlines.c and then the code that reads the
> plotfile is all.
> 
> The question is if we can change the format of that plot file during
> 6.1. I don't know the answer to that. If it is ok I am happy to do the
> changes as I already know the ps.map code and have been the one doing
> the RGB updating in the display modules. Updating the display modules
> has often been more of a hack than I'm happy with, but I think I have my
> head around how far & where to push that. But RGB support is better
> written into the ps.map code vs. the display driver so it isn't really a
> problem in this case.
> 
> 
> Hamish
>