[pstricks] pstricks and mathematica output

[Michael Sharpe]

On Dec 4, 2009, at 8:24 PM, Jon Joseph wrote:

> Michael: Thanks for your response. What I try to incorporate into PSTricks / LateX are 3D images that, sometimes, are more easily rendered in Mathematica. My experience with saving these in EPS are that they don't look nearly as good as when I save the image as a PDF.  Some of the Mathematica examples under the Help topic "PieChart3D" show some images that are easy in Mathematica but hard in under any PSTricks package - even pst-solide3d. Any further thoughts?  Jon

It may depend on how you save an eps/pdf from Mathematica. There are various options that affect the quality of the shading. As an example, I tried the mathematica 7 output from 

Plot3D[Sin[x + y^2], {x, -3, 3}, {y, -2, 2}]

as both pdf and eps, choosing the highest quality vector graphic options for both smooth shading and transparency. When rendered at the same magnification, (I was working at 214%), neither looked quite as good as the original in Mathematica, but they were very close to one another in quality. Both suffered from the same defects: (a) the grid lines on the surface were incomplete in both cases, and about equally so; (b) the rendering of shading has a number of dropouts (appeared as white incongruous pixels on the surface) in both cases, but many more in the pdf than in the eps. What was most strinking was the speed difference----the pdf rendered in a few seconds, the eps took over a minute. If your examples give better output with pdf, you could give the pdf an eps wrapper so it will include easily in a pstricks picture. I use pdftops, part of the Xpdf package, which has an option -eps. (Note: I don't think there is a binary for OS X---you have to compile it from source code.) The epspdf package (part of TeXLive since 2008) uses pdftops if it isnstalled, and recommends its use for highest quality.

Michael