[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

I'm no math guy, but isn't feeding the equation resulting in a graph into an appropriate program (e.g. gnuplot) and exporting it to SVG from there better than drawing the stuff manually?

No idea yet, that was just a few nights of fiddling a while back. I tried to use a nice amount of "automated" PNG -> SVG conversion tools, but most gave EXTREMELY bloated and subpar output.

For example, Inkscape has a "Tracing" tool:

http://inkscape.org/doc/tracing/tutorial-tracing.html

Instead of giving a single straight line, it would set many "points" along the line, and created a "jagged" very thin rectangle, or instead of a smooth curve line, it would generate hundreds of points along the line. Then using "simplify":

http://inkscape.org/doc/advanced/tutorial-advanced.html

to try to reduce the number of points just lead to breakage.

Perhaps I was just using the wrong tools (or maybe had to read much more closely in the documentation to get proper output), I will check out this gnuplot, thank you for the information.

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

I don't know if it is the best thing to do, but I have usually set a max-width in pixels on my illustrations so they can't display more than 150% of the native size. They might be too small for hi-res displays, but at least that keeps them from upscaling so huge that they look totally ugly.

Indeed, this is a good idea. I would rather just have a smaller (slightly expanded) image, than a HIDEOUSLY upscaled image.

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

@Tex: I wish there was a way to keep my images at original size, but the file-size is just too intimidating for my purposes. I doubt that anyone would want to download a public domain book with 100 - 350 png illustrations weighing 1 - 5 MB each.

I meant you keep/edit the original source, but putting smaller images into the EPUB (but larger than 600x800). Yes yes, a 300 MB EPUB would be immense.

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

Now if anyone ever invents a breed of svg that does "photo-real" stuff...

Well that is up to the person who designed the original file... there is lots of good vector art out there, although it mostly lays in the realm of comics/digital drawings. Sadly, I don't think you will be seeing century-old Mark Twain illustrations as SVG.