VMD-L Mailing List

From: Axel Kohlmeyer (akohlmey_at_cmm.chem.upenn.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 11 2009 - 14:27:58 CST

On Sun, 11 Jan 2009, Irene Newhouse wrote:

irene,

IN> I've got a PC running Vista, & am having fits with rendering. If I write a .ps file,
IN> the resolution is awful, and you can see the little polygons that make up new
IN> cartoon, and lines & licorice look jagged.

no surprise here. this is because the output of ps is not a bitmap
but rendered from real postscript graphics elements (and thus it
scales with the resolution). you have to view this similar to other
renderer file formats like povray or tachyon, only that the elements
used are rather crude (this part of the code could use some serious
overhault from a postscript expert, having scalable printable graphics
that look good and don't require a lot of diskspace would be nice).

IN> If I write a .bmp file, the only piece of software I have that can
IN> open the file is the Microsoft Picture Manager, but it has no
IN> capacity to save as a different file format. If I try to insert the
IN> file into a Microsoft Office package - Word or even Publisher - it
IN> cannot open the file, either as Windows bitmap or Windows enhanced
IN> bitmap.

well, i would call this first and foremost a problem of the
respective software packages and the fact that they don't
provide sufficient backward compatibility for a format that
is supposed to be native to the platform.

IN> Is there a workaround?

you could consider installing some other graphics package
that can read the format and write to supported format,
e.g. Gimp ( http://www.gimp.org/ ) or ImageMagick
( http://www.imagemagick.org/ ). as far as i know, both
packages exist for windows (i don't use windows) and
should be useful beyond your current problem, as they
offer a _lot_ of functionality for image manipulation
at an extremely competitive price (they are free ;-)).

cheers,
    axel.

IN>
IN> Thanks!
IN> Irene Newhouse
IN> _________________________________________________________________
IN> Windows Live?: Keep your life in sync.
IN> http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_allup_explore_012009 

-- 
=======================================================================
Axel Kohlmeyer   akohlmey_at_cmm.chem.upenn.edu   http://www.cmm.upenn.edu
   Center for Molecular Modeling   --   University of Pennsylvania
Department of Chemistry, 231 S.34th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6323
tel: 1-215-898-1582,  fax: 1-215-573-6233,  office-tel: 1-215-898-5425
=======================================================================
If you make something idiot-proof, the universe creates a better idiot.