Bug#365757: [Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#365757: octave-epstk: eps lines not optimized

[Thomas Weber]

Am Dienstag, den 02.05.2006, 19:43 +0200 schrieb Francesco Potorti`:
> Very often, while plotting big quantities of data, I have redundant
> points.  For example this X Y vector: 
> 
> 0 0                         0 0
> 1 1			    1 1
> 2 1			    8 1
> 3 1			    8 4
> 4 1			    9 5
> 8 1  could be reduced to
> 8 1
> 8 2
> 8 3
> 8 4
> 9 5
> 
> as far as plotting is concerned.  This optimisation reduces the size of
> the eps file and the time it needs to be rendered either on screen or by
> a printer.  I had cases where such an optimisation reduces the size by
> ten times.

I had some thoughts about this. My (personal) opinion is that this
should not be implemented in a specific plot package, but as a general
function.

Reasons:
1.) I believe a plot package should plot the data it was given; data
manipulation should happen before that.
2.) While the consquences of large data sets are really bad with EPS
files, other vector-based formats (like SVG) will suffer from the same
problems.

Francesco, do you have such a simplifying function already?

Regards,
	Thomas