Sometimes you might want to think when you draw in a landscape frame rather than the usual portrait frame. The following code draws an arrow pointing up on a page when you turn it in landscape mode.
%! 0 setlinewidth 72 72 scale % move the origin to the lower right corner 8.5 0 translate % rotate by 90 degrees 90 rotate % now we are in a "landscape" frame of reference; save it. gsave % move to the centre of the page: 5.5 4.25 translate % draw an arrow -- first the body newpath .5 setlinewidth 0 -1.5 moveto 0 1.5 lineto stroke %then the head 0 1.5 translate -135 rotate 0 1 moveto 0 0 lineto 1 0 lineto stroke grestore showpage
Here is the output (scaled to fit this page!):
Affine transformations map conics to conics (prove this as an exercise). In particular, ellipses map to ellipses. So if we want to draw an ellipse whose major axis is 2 inches and whose minor axis is 1 inch, we draw a circle in an appropriate frame of reference:
%! 0 setlinewidth 72 72 scale gsave % draw in the centre of the page 4.25 5.5 translate % rotate the world by 45 degrees 45 rotate % now scale the x direction so it is twice that of the y direction 2 1 scale % draw the circle 0 0 1 0 360 arc %put us back in our saved graphics state stroke grestore showpage
This creates in the centre of the page:
David Maxwell,
who is still writing this, would like to
hear your comments and suggestions.
And remember, parts of this manual are based on
P.J. Weingartner's work:
A First Guide to PostScript.