[GRASS-user] editing grass postscript maps

[Tyler Smith]

On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 09:29:42PM +0100, Paul Kelly wrote:
> On Tue, 15 May 2007, Dylan Beaudette wrote:
> 
> >how about concat-ing the figures into a single PS file, then converting to 
> >a
> >PDF with 8 pages per sheet ?
> 
> psutils (http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~ajcd/psutils/index.html), in 
> particular the psnup command, can do this to PostScript without any 
> conversion - I've used it sucessfully many times, although the last was 
> quite a few years ago now. Perhaps it is installed by default on Debian?

psnup is ok, but there is no direct way to control the spacing between
the original ps files, at least not that I can find. I've not got a
nice 2-column layout, but with big gaps betwen the columns and rows of
images, which will be a deal-breaker trying to get this published. The
actual code I used was:

psmerge -omerge.ps *.ps
psnup -m1in -w8.5in -h11in -W3in -H2in -8 merge.ps psnupped.ps

> 
> But I was assuming there'd be a need to put extra captions and stuff under 
> the maps and re-arrange them on the page, which psnup won't do. 

All I need is a letter in the corner of each plot, which ps.map will
do without much bother. The captions will be done in LaTeX.

> I'd say 
> definitely the Inkscape approach is the one to go with from this point of 
> view; perhaps it's worth investigating in more depth what the problem with 
> it is (e.g. look at the raw postscript text where the image is included or 
> something - try it with images from the new GRASS postscript display 
> driver and compare results or something) before spending a lot of time 
> looking at alternative solutions?

um, yeah. I looked at the raw postscript code and confirmed that I do
in fact have no knowledge of even the most basic structure of
postscript code. 

I have just now figured out what I was doing wrong with the Gimp. I
was opening the .eps files I had generated with ps.map at 300dpi, but
the base layer was only 100dpi, so the resolution was 100dpi in the
final image. Now that I know that, it looks like I should be able to
get clear, if very large, images out of the gimp after all. So if I
can't get inkscape to display the raster layer in lovely colour, at
least I can get a usable image out of that, at least for my thesis.

Thanks,

Tyler




> 
> Paul
> 
> >
> >I know that many KDE apps can do this in the print options -- which 
> >probably
> >just invoke gs with some magic incantations...
> >
> >cheers,
> >
> >dylan
> >
> >On Tuesday 15 May 2007 12:53, Tyler Smith wrote:
> >>Hi,
> >>
> >>I'm working on getting my GRASS maps ready for publication. I've
> >>worked my way through ps.map successfully, with eight nice maps. I'd
> >>like to make a single plate with all eight maps. I usually do my
> >>graphics editing with Gimp or Inkscape. However, in Gimp the maps are
> >>very grainy, which I imagine is a consequence of their being converted
> >>from ps to bitmap format. When I try to open them in Inkscape the
> >>vectors come out nice and clear, but the raster layers are completely
> >>absent. I've tried opening them, importing them, and converting them
> >>to svg manually using pstoedit, all with pretty much the same result.
> >>
> >>My questions are:
> >>
> >>Is there a way to make a multi-map plate directly in GRASS, or
> >>
> >>What is the recommended way to manipulate the ps files outside of
> >>GRASS to achieve this? I'm using Debian GNU/Linux, so have ready
> >>access to lots of graphics programs, if anyone can recommend something
> >>better than what I've tried.
> >>
> >>Thanks,
> >>
> >>Tyler
> >
> >-- 
> >Dylan Beaudette
> >Soils and Biogeochemistry Graduate Group
> >University of California at Davis
> >530.754.7341
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >grassuser mailing list
> >grassuser at grass.itc.it
> >http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grassuser
> >

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