MathGroup Archive 1995

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Graphics Blank Margin

  • To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net
  • Subject: [mg1133] Graphics Blank Margin
  • From: Xah Y Lee <xyl10060 at fhda.edu>
  • Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 02:59:15 -0400

This is a graphics problem.

When you execute the following,
ParametricPlot[{t, Sin@t}, {t, 0, 6 Pi},
        AspectRatio->Automatic,
        Background->GrayLevel[.8], Frame->True
]

You'll see that mma leaves a very wide blank space on left and right 
sides of the graphic, something very undesirable. After some study, I 
find that this will occur whenever the AspectRatio of the plot is very 
small, doesn't matter whether it's set by Automatic or explicitly. To see 
this, plot any curve and set a small AspectRatio, for example

ParametricPlot[{Cos@t, Sin@t}, {t, 0, 2 Pi},
        AspectRatio->1/10,
        Background->GrayLevel[.8], Frame->True
]

Why is this? To be sure this is not my ignorance of mma, compare the 
exact same plot without the blank sides, produced by the following method.

1) Plot any graph and set AspectRatio to 1.

ParametricPlot[{Cos@t, Sin@t}, {t, 0, 2 Pi},
        AspectRatio->1,
        Background->GrayLevel[.8], Frame->True
]

2) If you are using a Mac front end (or other similiar notebook 
frontend), uncheck the "Preserve AspectRatio" in the "Graph" menu.

3) Click and drag to widen your graphic to get the desired small AspectRatio.

As you can see, the same plot generated by this method do not have the 
wide blank space. The blank space is clearly something of a bug nature. 
Anyone knows why?
(I am using Student version 2.1 on a Macintosh, system 7.0 w/turn-up.)

Please answer by email. I don't have a good newsreader.

 Xah Lee   
Permament email:     74631.731 at compuserve.com
Quote of the day:
MathGroupers are like Frenchmen:  whenever you post something,
they translate it into mma language, and at once it is something
entirely different.  
(hey Paul, consider changing your quote. we need a new slogan.<g>)

 (^_^) 





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