R help - May 2012 - rgl.Sweave not producing transparency in pdf plots with alpha

Hi Folks,

I'm trying to get rgl.Sweave to produce plots with transparency.
However, it just seems to produce opaque plots when pdf is the output
type.  Perhaps this is a known issue?  I'll just use .png in the
meantime, but wanted to see about this, as I didn't see it in the
documentation (though it's possible I missed it).

Thanks,
Allie




\documentclass{article}
\title {rgl test}
\usepackage{Sweave}
\begin {document}

This is a test of rgl.sweave's alpha capability.

\begin{figure}
% uncomment line below for png output (correct transparency)
% <<echo=FALSE, grdevice=rgl.Sweave, fig=TRUE, width=5, height=5,
resolution=100>><<echo=FALSE, grdevice=rgl.Sweave, fig=TRUE,
width=5, height=5,
resolution=100, outputtype=pdf, pdf=TRUE>>library(rgl)
data(volcano)
z <- 2 * volcano        # Exaggerate the relief
x <- 10 * (1:nrow(z))   # 10 meter spacing (S to N)
y <- 10 * (1:ncol(z))   # 10 meter spacing (E to W)
zlim <- range(y)
zlen <- zlim[2] - zlim[1] + 1
colorlut <- terrain.colors(zlen) # height color lookup table
col <- colorlut[ z-zlim[1]+1 ] # assign colors to heights for each point
#open3d()
surface3d(x, y, z, color=col, back="lines", alpha=0.75)
@
\end{figure}

\end{document}

On 02/05/2012 11:00 AM, Alexander Shenkin wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I'm trying to get rgl.Sweave to produce plots with transparency.
> However, it just seems to produce opaque plots when pdf is the output
> type.  Perhaps this is a known issue?  I'll just use .png in the
> meantime, but wanted to see about this, as I didn't see it in the
> documentation (though it's possible I missed it).
That uses the rgl.postscript() function, which uses the GL2PS library to 
convert to PDF.  It may be that it doesn't support transparency in your 
scene.  Or perhaps it just hasn't been turned on:  GL2PS didn't support 
transparency when rgl.postscript was written.

Duncan Murdoch
>
> Thanks,
> Allie
>
>
>
>
> \documentclass{article}
> \title {rgl test}
> \usepackage{Sweave}
> \begin {document}
>
> This is a test of rgl.sweave's alpha capability.
>
> \begin{figure}
> % uncomment line below for png output (correct transparency)
> %<<echo=FALSE, grdevice=rgl.Sweave, fig=TRUE, width=5, height=5,
> resolution=100>>> <<echo=FALSE, grdevice=rgl.Sweave,
fig=TRUE, width=5, height=5,
> resolution=100, outputtype=pdf, pdf=TRUE>>> library(rgl)
> data(volcano)
> z<- 2 * volcano        # Exaggerate the relief
> x<- 10 * (1:nrow(z))   # 10 meter spacing (S to N)
> y<- 10 * (1:ncol(z))   # 10 meter spacing (E to W)
> zlim<- range(y)
> zlen<- zlim[2] - zlim[1] + 1
> colorlut<- terrain.colors(zlen) # height color lookup table
> col<- colorlut[ z-zlim[1]+1 ] # assign colors to heights for each point
> #open3d()
> surface3d(x, y, z, color=col, back="lines", alpha=0.75)
> @
> \end{figure}
>
> \end{document}
>
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