Sounds like the problem is in your X server and not in R. I've seen this with Xfree (and don't use that myself on Linux).
1) I suggest you try a postscript() device, and convert later if you need to. Expect a very large file size. 2) Don't plot all the points. You say you have a `very large dataset'. In statistics, we give numbers, not vague descriptions. However, with what that means to me (many millions of rows) a scatterplot of a very large dataset is going to be mainly black at least in places. (We've experienced that with 1.4 million points, for example.) That's not a good way to display the data. Either use a density plot, or if you are interested in outliers, thin the centre. We did this by estimating a density phat, then randomly selecting points with probability min(1, const/phat(x)) for a suitable `const'. On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, J C wrote: > Hello, > > I'm fairly new to R so please excuse me if I am asking something obvious. > I have looked in the FAQ, Introduction, and help pages, and searched the > archives, but I don't know much about graphics yet. > > I'm running Red Hat Linux 2.14.18 on a machine blessed with dual 1.5 Xeon > processors and 3.7GB of RAM. I have a very large dataset with 27 variables, > and in exploring the data I want to take snapshots using pairs(). The lower > matrix and diagonal are filled with other graphics. (Please don't suggest > that I cut down the variable number! This is in fact the trimmed-down, > must-have set of variables.) > > Of course, even with all that memory, I get a crash about 2/3 of the way > through. This is one of those cases where it's hard to troubleshoot since > everything works fine for small datasets. It is tantalizing because the > process takes over two hours to display most of the figure before the > freeze happens. > > However, it seems to me that the crash is more related to the kind of > graphics device that I'm using and the size of the device.For instance, if > I'm using X11 it crashes slower than using png, and right now I'm trying > bitmap to produce a png file (it hasn't crashed after a half hour now, but > there's always time for that later.) The plot also gets further along if I > set a small area for the device, but of course then the plots are > ridiculously tiny and hard to interpret. I have 729 little plots, and I'd > be satisfied if they were at least .75 inches on each side... about 21 in. > square altogether. > > What can I do to increase the chances that I'll be able to produce a > viewable, printable image? > Suppose that bitmap works-- can I raise the resolution up from 72 without > fear? > > Thanks, > Jean > > ______________________________________________ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list > http://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > -- Brian D. Ripley, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272860 (secr) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595 ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
