Re: How to get decent quality plots.
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg57418] Re: How to get decent quality plots.
- From: AES <siegman at stanford.edu>
- Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 04:57:00 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Stanford University
- References: <d742ff$im2$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
In article <d742ff$im2$1 at smc.vnet.net>, Dave <nospam at nowhere.com>
wrote:
> I'm using ListPlot to plot some data points and have used options like
>
> PlotLabel -> "64 cycles in FIFO", AxesLabel -> {"S/N dB", "RMS error mm"}
>
> But the graphs come out look pretty awful.
>
> 1) The font looks like courier
> 2) The text on the x-axis starts at the end of the axis, not under the
> numbers which is more usual.
> 3) The text on the y-axis runs horizontally, along the top, rather than
> vertically.
>
> Any suggestions for some ways to make graphs look better. I don't want
> to have to export the data into Excel!!
Read up on or consult Help on the following commands (they're not too
hard to learn or messy to use, once you learn them):
TextStyle
PointSize
Thickness
SetOptions
AspectRatio
ImageSize
Graphics`Colors`
Epilog
Text
Line
Frame
FrameTicks
For example, some presets in opening section of your notebook
Needs["Graphics`Colors`"}; (* If you want to use color *)
Thick = Thickness[0.008]; (* Adjust number to suit you *)
Thin = Thickness[0.004];
Bigpoint = PointSize[0.012];
Dashed = Dashing[{0.01,0.01}];
Undashed = Dashing[[{ }];
SetOptions[Plot,
TextStyle->{FontFamily->"Helvetica",
FontWeight->"Plain",
FontSize->14},
PlotStyle->{BigPoint}]];
and to place red and blue text and a thin dashed green line in a plot:
ListPlot[ . . . ,
Epilog->{Red,Text["abc", {x1,y1},{ xs1,ys1}],
Blue, Text["def", {x2,y2}, {xs2,ys2}],
Thin, Dashed, Green, Line[{{}, {}}]}]:
One warning: Even if you set FontFamily->"Helvetica", Mathematica has an
annoying habit of outputing "-5" as 5 in Helvetica and the - sign in a
Math font or "a = b" with the = sign in the Math font, even though
Helvetica has perfectly good - and = signs. There's an obscure option
to turn this off and make in _all_ Helvetica, but I forget what it is.