I have a bunch of diagrams created using a Java diagramming tool that I wrote - they are mostly black and white diagrams, with the blocks in aqua, and occasional other colours. They are currently being saved as JPG files, and I want to insert them into a book that I am preparing for Print On Demand.
The book is an OpenOffice ODT file, which will later be converted to a PDF.
Currently I use JPG files, but the print facility they use requires 300 DPI, so I modified my diagramming tool to set the xDensity and yDensity to 300, and resUnits to 1, using getAsTree(), and then expand the diagram by a factor of 3 (300/96). IMO the result looks pretty good!
Unfortunately, someone on another forum pointed out that line diagrams are "fuzzed" on JPG files, so suggested that I change over to PNG, or possibly BMP files, both of which ODT files allow to be inserted.
My problem is that BMPs don't seem to have a DPI, and PNGMetadata doesn't seem to support getAsTree(). Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks.
I don't understand the getAsTree() part, but answering the question that appears in the title, setting dpi for PNG files, you could use the imagemagick convert tool:
convert -density 300 -units pixelsperinch infile.jpg outfile.png
PNG, BMP and dozens of other image formats don't compress your diagrams - compression is probably what your commentor was getting at. JPEGs are great for photos but suck at diagrams.
You might want to look into SVG and other vector formats. Or if your environment allows, exporting 0% compression JPEGs and converting them into another format for lossless reproduction at 300DPI.
Hope that helps!
I decided not to try to do this programmatically. Instead I create the original diagram in PNG, then convert to 300 DPI using Irfanview. Irfanview's batch capability lets me convert to 300 DPI, scale up to compensate, and set to grey scale, all in one operation - and on multiple files at a time. This seems to be the best solution - but thanks to everyone anyway!
Related
I'd like to batch convert .heic images (e.g. iPhone photograph) to .jpg files with imagemagick, with the goal of retaining as much of the quality from the original image as possible. To be clear, the resulting output size is not a concern.
I've been using
magick input.heic -quality 100% output.jpg
Is it possible to do better?
No, its not possible to do better per ImageMagick's website:
Set the quality to 100 to produce lossless HEIC images. Requires the libheif delegate library.
I interpret lossless as NOTHING is lost from original picture. However since you ARE converting to another file type maybe its possible you lose something, are you seeing any artifacts/issues?
Is there a way to convert all TIFF images to PNG using windows console or any simple tool.
I renamed tags, but the problem now is file size. What are ways to compress files?
imagemagick, it's CLI tool for image manipulation available for most major operating systems including Windows http://www.imagemagick.org/script/download.php
It's very simple to use it
convert in.tiff out.png
To convert and scale by 50%:
convert in.tiff -resize 50% out.png
Here you can find full list of general commands
TinyPng is great to compress png files, you can try that.
www.tinypng.com
How the line smoothness in a contour plot can be improved for publications? For instance, the dotted lines look really bad, the continuous lines look as if their thickness varies. See below
Here's part of the code:
Vals = [0:5:200]; contourf(X,Y,W,Vals,'EdgeColor','k','LineWidth',1.2,'LineStyle',':');axis square;grid;hold on
Vals = [10:10:200]; contour(X,Y,W,Vals,'EdgeColor','k','LineWidth',1.2);
Vals = [20 : 20 : 200]; [C,h] = contour(X,Y,W,Vals,'Color','k','LineWidth',1.8);
clabel(C,h,'FontName','Palatino Linotype','FontAngle','italic','Fontsize',9,'Color','w')
print -djpeg -r300 filename
Thanks!
Saved as png doesn't help much... check the lines :/ See below:
Check the dotted lines now...
Here's saving as eps (-r1200)... it looks better
Exporting as vector graphics will definitely improve the image over what you see on your screen; I use LaTeX for publications and you can either export to eps for postscript output, and use epstopdf for PDF output, and embed these directly in your document; that would be the best solution.
Additionally, there are also a bunch of general utilities for making your plots look better for camera-ready publications, the most notable that comes to mind is exportfig, which has a load of features to help even with pixel graphics. These go above and beyond just generating smoother-looking images.
http://www.mathworks.us/matlabcentral/fileexchange/23629-exportfig
(copied from that page):
This function saves a figure or single axes to one or more vector and/or bitmap file formats, and/or outputs a rasterized version to the workspace, with the following properties:
Figure/axes reproduced as it appears on screen
Cropped borders (optional)
Embedded fonts (pdf only)
Improved line and grid line styles
Anti-aliased graphics (bitmap formats)
Render images at native resolution (optional for bitmap formats)
Transparent background supported (pdf, eps, png)
Semi-transparent patch objects supported (png only)
RGB, CMYK or grayscale output (CMYK only with pdf, eps, tiff)
Variable image compression, including lossless (pdf, eps, jpg)
Optionally append to file (pdf, tiff)
Vector formats: pdf, eps
Bitmap formats: png, tiff, jpg, bmp, export to workspace
This function is especially suited to exporting figures for use in publications and presentations, because of the high quality and portability of media produced.
Update: I see your example code now. Did you try changing -r300 to some really high value? More pixels per inch should make everything look smoother. For publication, crank it up really high, like -r1200.
Original:
One thing you can try is exporting the plot in some format that supports vector graphics. Matlab supports both PDF and EMF, so try one of those. Export using the saveas command or from the figure's "File -> Save as" menu item. After that, open or import the image file in some other application and hopefully it will look better.
Please add a new screenshot if you get a nicer image!
I want to save a MATLAB figure as PDF, with quality 300 DPI, and centered.
So far I managed to save it, but the image appears cropped. I changed the page type to A3 and kind of solves the problem, but I am looking for something more elegant. I am doing it from the GUI, but maybe from the command line is easier in MATLAB.
Is there any package or script that makes this (fundamental task for publications and papers) a bit easier?
Try using the following command:
print -painters -dpdf -r300 test.pdf
You will, of course, already have to have a file named test.pdf in the current directory.
Some notes on the -commands as well.
-painters: this specifies the use of the painters alogrithm for the exporting.
-dpdf: specifies a vector image, specially a pdf in this case. This is through Ghostscript.
-r300: specifies a 300 dpi resolution. -r400 would be 400 dpi and so on.
On an off note. I tend to just save the figure as a high DPI tiff image and import that tiff into another program where I actually assemble my figure(s) for the paper. I tend to lean towards CorelDraw personally.
I would recommend to check the exportfig package
exportfig(gcf, path_to_file, 'format','pdf','Resolution', 300 )
also, you can check fig package, which is nice to call before the exportfig:
figure
plot(x,y)
fig
exportfig(gcf, path_to_file, 'format','pdf','Resolution', 300 )
I am looking to export my MATLAB plot as a high quality figure. Specifically, I would like to save it as a vector based file format such as EPS or SVG.
I have tried print and saveas commands:
saveas(h,'myFileName','epsc2');
print('-r150','-depsc2', 'myFilename');
On all occasions this produces poor quality parts of the graph, although the axis-labels are indeed vector. Why does MatLab do some horrible rendering before putting it into an EPS?
Example of poor quality plot here:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~pemb2372/myFileName.eps
Edit:
It is also worth noting that if you use a Mac viewing an EPS file from Matlab, 'Preview' app may render inner graph content rasterized and poor quality, while leaving the axis and labels vectorized and high quality. This is very misleading but when you open said EPS file in, for example, Inkscape, the quality is actually vector and quite high.
Edit 2:
My university hosting account has expired, so you can no longer view the figure. Suffice it to say that it showed a poor quality raster-style plot within high quality beautiful axis lines, ticks and labels.
I thought I would share the issue I had, and how I overcame it...
I was getting terrible results because I had the wrong renderer set to default. In my startup.m, I had the zbuffer renderer enabled. This is an example eps output.
I made that eps output with: print(gcf,'-depsc2','filename.eps'). This eps is so OBVIOUSLY rasterised. It makes me angry at matlab. Then, I had a brainwave - perhaps my default renderer zbuffer is interfering with the image save process. So, adding the line:
set(gcf,'renderer','painters')
and running the print command as before, here is the output:
Note that I just took screenshots of the eps output files at 100%. And I can confirm the second image is actually vector. Here is a good question/explanation on choosing Renderers in MATLAB.
Matlab can export to pdf with better quality than EPS, but with its own caveats of setting decent margins and font sizes.
edit:
Examples are similar to the EPS case as explained in the help of e.g. print:
saveas(gcf,'filename.pdf')
or
print('-dpdf','filename.pdf')
You might also want to take a look at the PaperSize, PaperPosition and PaperUnits properties of your figure (by means of the set and get functions).
edit: Another option is to use one of the functions available on FileExchange such as the ones mentioned by #user664303 below. My personal favorite for use with LaTeX is matlab2tikz for which the latest version can be gotten from GitHub. Together with the external library of TikZ, I think this delivers some of the most nicest graphs around.
Probably it's also best to mention that I have been actively involved in the matlab2tikz project since 2012.
The export_fig function on the MATLAB file exchange is a reasonably reliable way of accurately exporting figures to eps and pdf (as well as bitmap formats) in MATLAB.
The plot2svg function, also from the file exchange, allows you to export in svg format. It provides some additional benefits, such as being able to export translucent patch objects in vector format.
A comparison of exporting methods is given in this blog post.
I always acquire the final plots (those which are supposed to be inserted into papers and publications) by matplotlib library of python.
You can bet on the amazing quality of the generated plots, both .pdf and .eps formats.