Ghostscript error with print function in Matlab - matlab

Question

I am trying to save images in Matlab by using the print function:
myImage = magic(500);
myFigure = figure('visible','off');
r = 1;
set(myFigure, 'PaperUnits', 'inches', 'PaperPosition', [0 0 1920 1080]/r);
% the program works fine on both computers without the line above
% however, the program runs fine on one computer only with this line
imagesc(myImage); axis image;
print(myFigure, '-dpng', sprintf('-r%d',r), 'myOutput.png');
When I run this program locally with Matlab R2012b, it works as expected. However, if I try to run it on a remote machine with Matlab R2011b, I get the following error message:
Error using ghostscript (line 188)
Problem converting PostScript. System returned error: -1.Failed to convert to
output format; Ghostscript status: -100.**** Unable to open the initial device,
quitting.
and the following error which is triggered by the line with the call to print():
Error in print>LocalPrint (line 311)
pj = ghostscript( pj );
Error in print (line 237)
LocalPrint(pj);
The code is more specifically:
if pj.GhostDriver
pj = ghostscript( pj );
elseif strcmp( pj.Driver, 'hpgl' )
hpgl( pj );
end
On my laptop, pj.GhostDriver is '' and pj.Driver is png.
One possible explanation is that I can launch ghostscript locally from the terminal:
$ ghostscript
GPL Ghostscript 9.10 (2013-08-30)
Copyright (C) 2013 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
GS>
but not remotely from the terminal (since I do not have any graphical interface on the remote computer):
$ ghostscript
GPL Ghostscript 9.05 (2012-02-08)
Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
GPL Ghostscript 9.05: Cannot open X display `(null)'.
**** Unable to open the initial device, quitting.
I would have thought Matlab already knew about it, since I launch Matlab on both computers by using:
matlab -nosplash -nodesktop -singleCompThread
Moreover, this problem is easily fixed as far as the terminal is concerned by adding the following line to ~/.bashrc:
export GS_DEVICE=display
Any hint at a solution?