How can I reduce the amount of memory use in drawing millions of rectangles?

Hi,

I am drawing 2D rectangles in matlab by rectangle() command. As the number of rectangles increases to million (or to billion), I can see the amount of memory use exceeds several gigabytes.

So, the question is, how can I draw rectangles without considerably increasing the amount of memory? Or, if it is possible, could you show me the way to plot directly to eps file without plotting to figure window?

Sincerely, Moon

[Walter Roberson]

Umm, what output resolution did you say you were aiming for?

[Pilkyung]

Usually, 300 to 600 dpi.

[Walter Roberson]

And what order of magnitude of desired image size (in pixels) ?

[Pilkyung]

Approximately 8 inch. So, I need 2400 to 4800 pixels in both lateral and vertical directions.

[Walter Roberson]

At 4800 x 4800 and a billion rectangles, you are averaging only 0.02 pixels per rectangle (under the assumption they are not overlapping.)

4800 x 4800 and a million rectangles gives a more plausible 23 pixels average per rectangle, but 2400 x 2400 and a million would be down to only a little over 5 pixels average per rectangle.