Cavok V6 Plots for Documents and Reports

Pierre Lamary July 29, 2012

Abstract This document describes how to obtain high quality plots from Cavok to be inserted in your reports. It applies to Finite Elements meshes gures as well as for plots gures. Tests were only carried using this latex le. However, we think that results should be similar in your editing environment.

Contents
1 Introduction 2 Plotting curves 2.1 Vectorial plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Bitmap plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Alternative way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Plotting meshes 4 Conclusion 1 2 2 3 3 3 5

1 Introduction
Certainly exist advanced image processing algorithms but from our practical interest, we note the following. Bitmap images are easy to produce but give optimal results only when the denition matches the nal support. In any other case, enlarging or reducing the size of the image, the quality may collapse drastically. As we have to produce document, as .pdf les, that will be read on computers with zoom facilities, or large size documents as posters, we turn our attention to vectorial formats. However, the vectorial printing format do not suit to represent a full large mesh. Mixed rasterized images and vectors ares generally used in this case. Several outputs formats are available in Cavok. We presents hereafter these formats and some ways to use them with efciency.

2 Plotting curves
Images are obtained using the interactive 8_PostScript button of the Curves dialog window. The same function is available in the detach window of plots. In the latter, the ZapFS(FontSize) and Zap(Grid) may help to prepare the view. When using the PostScript button function, Cavok will generate 4 les with different image formats, stored in the Bag_Curve folder. The les are the following: 1. Plot.png, a bitmap format without loss of data. 2. Plot.ps, a bitmap and vectorial format. 3. PlotVect.eps, a vectorial format without any text. 4. PlotVect.svg, a vectorial format without any text, proper to use Inkscape vectorial image editor. Text has been removed in the .eps and .svg format because, unfortunately, the text isnt vectorial in the curves gures. Moreover, one difculty is to have readable text, we nd more convenient to add it later using a vectorial editor.

2.1 Vectorial plot

In the example of gure 1, the Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) format is used. Next, vectorial text is added using Inkscape editor, and nally the gure is exported to an .eps format for latex. The latex export option shares the image from the text, thus latex document font is used in the gure which make legends readable. The little problem that can be noted is that the initial red dash line (see g 2) was transformed into a plain line. The line width seems to be lost also.

cosine sine
Amplitude

temps

Figure 1: A vectorial plot with legends written with the main document fonts

2.2 Bitmap plot

In this example of gure 2, a PostScript (.ps) le is used from a Cavok plot including the plot text. As the plot text is not vectorial, the result is an image picture.

Figure 2: A Postscript coding for a bitmap image

2.3 Alternative way

An alternative way to obtain a better result than the pure bitmap format is to import, for instance, the .png le to Inskscape editor and next export it to an .eps le. This example is presented gure 3. To make apparent the differences between gures 1, 2 and 3, you should use the Zoom-In and Zoom-Out functions of your browser. Comparing 2 and 3, important differences were noted when looking to the intermediary .dvi le. However, its seems that the nal .pdf le has withdrawn the differences.

3 Plotting meshes
When using the image button of the main application tool bars, image les are generated using severals formats. The les are stored in the Bag_Anim folder with the the following: 1. Image.png, 2. Image.wrl.

Figure 3: Png to Eps image using Inkscape editor Wrl (world) is the current extension of the VRML format which allows 3D interactive visualization. For instance, you may used the web browser plugin, Cortona3D, on Windows operating system, to do such viewing. For our present objective, related to .pdf documents, the .png format, presented gure 4, gives satisfactory results. In such gures, the text is vectorial. Once again, we used Inkscape editor to transform the png format to an eps format (the format we use to insert gures in our documents) . As before, Inkscacpe could have been used to insert more readable texts.

Figure 4: A vectorial plot of a mesh gure

4 Conclusion
Cavok offers several possibilities to plot curves and meshes to be inserted in reports. For curves the best result is obtained using a vectorial format without text legends. For the meshes, the .png format shows it very satisfactory. We suggest the use a vectorial editor to change the formats and to complete the gures with readable texts. To do this, we used Inkscape editor (which is a free software), but, probably, Adobe Illustrator, for instance, has equivalent functionalities. Before closing this document, we must also mention an other possibility. You will soon have the possibility to use some Read/Write functions for meshes gures and plots gures. These functions are under programming. They will allow the post-processing of meshes with Paraview software and the post-processing of curves with MatLab, Scilab or Excel-like software. Thus, taking advantage, in particular, of the printing facilities of these software.