Re: gnuplot: set terminal png

[Przemek Klosowski]

   printing. Size of pdf was 52 kB and surprisingly? increased to 132 kB for
   png file.

Not surprising at all---scientific graphics is mostly vector-based
(lines, meshes and such) so it can be represented well in vector-based
graphics languages, like Postscript, PDF, SVG, or even HPGL. Each line
can be described by four numbers (coordinates of its endpoints);
colored areas are efficiently described in terms of their enclosing
polygons.

When translated into bitmap-based graphics formats like GIF, PNG,
JPEG, etc, it is bound to increase in size: lines and polygons have to
be decomposed into pixels, and every last pixel of the image has to be
specified. Even with compression, this is almost always more information.

Moreover, to get nice printed image you need high resolution (printers
nowadays are 600 or 1200 pixels per inch, or up to 134 megapixels per
page).  The vector-based formats are nice because they display well at
screen resolutions (72 dots per inch) as well as rendering precise,
sharp printouts at 1200 dpi.



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