Just a note on Robert Terwilliger email, I have generated hundreds of plots and plot files:
(snip....) > >1) Huge file size. > >This is no doubt caused by producing a representation of an analemma or >other object that includes a large number of points. Not only will this >create a huge file, but it will also take hours to plot. I don't think >plotters were designed to plot multiple intense curves, nor do I think >the curve needs so many points to create a reasonable plot. The only >solution I can see is to reduce the number of points in each curve. > Although the file size will increase with the number of points, the plot time will not as plotters are quite slow and most of the time taken is in moving the distance from one point to the next. If you put several more points in between them it takes no longer as the pen still has to travel that distance. Sophisticated plotting programs will put points in between the points you specify using a spline routine to smooth the curve, so you may not see a reduction in file size as well. You can only be sure by generating generating the HPGL files directly. Cheers, Professor John P.G.Shepherd Physics Department University of Wisconsin-River Falls 410 S. 3rd. St. River Falls,WI 54022 Phone (715)-425-3196, eve. (715)-425-6203 Fax (715)-425-0652 44.88 degrees N, 92.71 degrees W.
