Question

How can I set the point size in gnuplot in the units of the plot coordinates?

In other words, the points should get smaller if I increase xrange.

It looks like this is all terminal dependent. Is there a workaround?

Answer 1

Here’s a small example using inline data …

plot '-' u 1:2:1 ps variable
  1 2
  2 3
  3 4
  4 5
  5 6
  e

Note that while it is possible to change the pointsize using a column from your datafile, I am not aware of any way to specify how large each point should be since the pointsize (and even the pointtype) is a terminal dependent quantity. The only workaround that I can come up with is to scale the points by a terminal dependent value.

default_value=1.0
func(x)=1.0*x  #Change this to change the functional dependence of the pointsize on x.
scale_point(x)=(GPVAL_TERM=="postscript") ? 1.0*func(x) :\
               (GPVAL_TERM=="png") ?        2.0*(x) :\
               default_value
plot "mydata.dat" u 1:2:(scale_point($1)) w pt ps variable

It’s ugly, but it should get the job done — You could also write a similar function which returns the pointtype to achieve some sort of terminal independence with that as well…

EDIT

Note, my points increase in size linearly as x gets bigger, but you can substitute any function you want to make the points get smaller as you see fit.
What I am saying is that I don’t believe that option exists since as you state “all this is terminal dependent”. I tried to provide a ugly hack to allow you to modify this on a per-plot basis with minimal intervention — allowing for different terminals, etc.

EDIT 2

While responding to your comment, I remembered an odd little corner of the gnuplot documentation that may be helpful.

set style fill transparent solid noborder  #whatever fillstyle you want...
plot 'mydata' u 1:2:3 w circles

see help circles … I’m not sure when this feature was introduced, probably with gnuplot 4.3, but if you’re using 4.2 then give it a try and let me know how it goes…