Merge pull request matplotlib#5984 from overdetermined/patch-1

Suggestion for Rasterization to docs pgf-backend

Author: tacaswell

doc/users/artists.rst

@@ -156,9 +156,9 @@ MATLAB, and is a 2D "patch" of color on the figure, e.g., rectangles,
 circles and polygons).  Every matplotlib ``Artist`` has the following
 properties
 
-==========   ======================================================================
+==========   ================================================================================
 Property     Description
-==========   ======================================================================
+==========   ================================================================================
 alpha 	     The transparency - a scalar from 0-1
 animated     A boolean that is used to facilitate animated drawing
 axes         The axes that the Artist lives in, possibly None
@@ -172,7 +172,8 @@ picker       A python object that controls object picking
 transform    The transformation
 visible      A boolean whether the artist should be drawn
 zorder       A number which determines the drawing order
-==========   ======================================================================
+rasterized   Boolean; Turns vectors into rastergraphics: (for compression & eps transparency)
+==========   ================================================================================
 
 Each of the properties is accessed with an old-fashioned setter or
 getter (yes we know this irritates Pythonistas and we plan to support

doc/users/pgf.rst

@@ -160,7 +160,17 @@ Troubleshooting
   in yout LaTeX document, the alignment of text elements in imported figures
   may be off. Check the header of your ``.pgf`` file if you are unsure about
   the fonts matplotlib used for the layout.
-
+  
+* Vector images and hence ``.pgf`` files can become bloated if there are a lot 
+  of objects in the graph. This can be the case for image processing or very
+  big scatter graphs.  In an extreme case this can cause TeX to run out of 
+  memory: "TeX capacity exceeded, sorry"  You can configure latex to increase 
+  the amount of memory available to generate the ``.pdf`` image as discussed on  
+  `tex.stackexchange.com <http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/7953>`_.
+  Another way would be to "rasterize" parts of the graph causing problems 
+  using either the ``rasterized=True`` keyword, or ``.set_rasterized(True)`` as per 
+  `this example <http://matplotlib.org/examples/misc/rasterization_demo.html>`_.
+  
 * If you still need help, please see :ref:`reporting-problems`
 
 .. _LaTeX: http://www.tug.org