Martin, When I try your example with svn matplotlib, I get a 34 MB eps file, and looking at it, I don't see much room for making it smaller--there is one obvious optimization, abbreviating "marker", but that's it. (The svg file is 456 MB!) So, maybe some major optimization has already been done between mpl 0.87.2 and svn.
The bigger problem is that each file format has basic characteristics and limitations. If you draw a million markers and line segments, you are inevitably going to have a big postscript file, unless the postscript backend somehow detects the fact that almost all of your points are indistinguishable and therefore deletes most of them--and this is really asking too much of a plotting backend, I think. (An alternative is to generate a pixel image and make the postscript from that; this is what matlab does under some circumstances, but it can result in big files of poor quality.) Your options include: filter your points beforehand so you only plot points that are distinct; or use a pixel-based format like png, which keeps the file size under control. Eric Martin Manns wrote: > Hi, > > When I use matplotlib for a scatter plot with both dots and connecting lines, > the exported eps file is huge, if the distances between many points are small. > I think of this as a bug, since no preview tiff is included in the generated > eps > and a variety of text processing applications (including OpenOffice) crash > when I try to import the eps. Ghostscript takes forever, too. Is there > anything > that I can do in order to export reasonable eps files? > > I am using: > python 2.4.2 > matplotlib 0.87.2 > numpy 0.9.8 > > with Linux > > The following small example illustrates the problem: > -- > import pylab,numpy,random > random.seed() > x=[random.gauss(0,1)/float(i)**2 for i in xrange(1,1000000)] > X=numpy.array(x,numpy.Float32) > pylab.plot(X[1:],X[:-1],"-", c="#eeeeee") > pylab.plot(X[1:],X[:-1],"xk") > pylab.show() > -- > > The resulting eps file: > -rw-r----- 1 xx users 212190257 Jul 4 09:39 image.eps > > Thanks a lot in advance > > Martin > > > Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? > Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier > Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 > _______________________________________________ > Matplotlib-users mailing list > Matplotlib-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list Matplotlib-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users
