[GRASS-user] ps.map Advice

[Hamish]

Rich:
> I suppose that for printed output purposes (separate from analytical
> purposes), I can make the resolution even more coarse.
>
>  Sure enough. 20m resolution makes a 0.5M pdf and the page looks just as
> good as it did before.
...
>  Running 'g.region -m' revealed that the resolutions were much too fine:
> about 2m each direction. I changed that to 10m for both nsres and ewres and
> the final .pdf is about 2.8M. I suppose that for printed output purposes
> (separate from analytical purposes), I can make the resolution even more
> coarse.

you might calculate what resolution gives you 300dpi by measuring the
width of the printed map box in inches and multiplying by the desired
dpi. any thing more than that is wasted disk space, anything less causes
a cruddier printout. be aware that many ps->pdf converters silently
convert your image to a 72dpi jpeg or so; if you want higher quality
you have to pass ghostscript/whatever some extra flags:

http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Ps.map_scripts#Converting_PostScript_to_PDF


> Once I get the system down I'll output to .eps for inclusion in LaTeX.

beware that if you use .eps instead of .ps that any SCALE 1:xx,xxx written
on your map will become invalid. (with .ps we can guarantee that 1" is 1"
when printed)


Hamish