matplotlib · mdboom · May 24, 2013 · Aug 26, 2012 · Aug 26, 2012 · Oct 3, 2012
diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+2013-05-18 Added support for arbitrary rasterization resolutions to the
+           SVG backend. Previously the resolution was hard coded to 72
+           dpi. Now the backend class takes a image_dpi argument for
+           its constructor, adjusts the image bounding box accordingly
+           and forwards a magnification factor to the image renderer.
+           The code and results now resemble those of the PDF backend.
+           - MW
+
 2013-05-08 Changed behavior of hist when given stacked=True and normed=True.
            Histograms are now stacked first, then the sum is normalized.
            Previously, each histogram was normalized, then they were stacked.

diff --git a/doc/users/whats_new.rst b/doc/users/whats_new.rst
@@ -1126,3 +1126,7 @@ Here are the 0.98.4 notes from the CHANGELOG::
     off automatically when infs or NaNs are present.  Also masked
     arrays are now converted to arrays with NaNs for consistent
     handling of masks and NaNs - MGD and EF
+
+    Added support for arbitrary rasterization resolutions to the SVG 
+    backend. - MW
+
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/backends/backend_svg.py b/lib/matplotlib/backends/backend_svg.py
@@ -249,10 +249,11 @@ class RendererSVG(RendererBase):
     FONT_SCALE = 100.0
     fontd = maxdict(50)
 
-    def __init__(self, width, height, svgwriter, basename=None):
+    def __init__(self, width, height, svgwriter, basename=None, image_dpi=72):
         self.width = width
         self.height = height
         self.writer = XMLWriter(svgwriter)
+        self.image_dpi = image_dpi # the actual dpi we want to rasterize stuff with
 
         self._groupd = {}
         if not rcParams['svg.image_inline']:
@@ -747,6 +748,9 @@ def draw_gouraud_triangles(self, gc, triangles_array, colors_array,
     def option_scale_image(self):
         return True
 
+    def get_image_magnification(self):
+        return self.image_dpi / 72.0
+
     def draw_image(self, gc, x, y, im, dx=None, dy=None, transform=None):
         attrib = {}
         clipid = self._get_clip(gc)
@@ -769,6 +773,17 @@ def draw_image(self, gc, x, y, im, dx=None, dy=None, transform=None):
             im.resize(numcols, numrows)
 
         h,w = im.get_size_out()
+
+        if dx is None:
+            w = 72.0*w/self.image_dpi
+        else:
+            w = dx
+
+        if dy is None:
+            h = 72.0*h/self.image_dpi
+        else:
+            h = dy
+
         oid = getattr(im, '_gid', None)
         url = getattr(im, '_url', None)
         if url is not None:
@@ -1154,25 +1169,17 @@ def print_svgz(self, filename, *args, **kwargs):
 
     def _print_svg(self, filename, svgwriter, fh_to_close=None, **kwargs):
         try:
+            image_dpi = kwargs.pop("dpi", 72)
             self.figure.set_dpi(72.0)
             width, height = self.figure.get_size_inches()
             w, h = width*72, height*72
 
             if rcParams['svg.image_noscale']:
-                renderer = RendererSVG(w, h, svgwriter, filename)
+                renderer = RendererSVG(w, h, svgwriter, filename, image_dpi)
             else:
-                # setting mixed renderer dpi other than 72 results in
-                # incorrect size of the rasterized image. It seems that the
-                # svg internally uses fixed dpi of 72 and seems to cause
-                # the problem. I hope someone who knows the svg backends
-                # take a look at this problem. Meanwhile, the dpi
-                # parameter is ignored and image_dpi is fixed at 72. - JJL
-
-                #image_dpi = kwargs.pop("dpi", 72)
-                image_dpi = 72
                 _bbox_inches_restore = kwargs.pop("bbox_inches_restore", None)
                 renderer = MixedModeRenderer(self.figure,
-                    width, height, image_dpi, RendererSVG(w, h, svgwriter, filename),
+                    width, height, image_dpi, RendererSVG(w, h, svgwriter, filename, image_dpi),
                     bbox_inches_restore=_bbox_inches_restore)
 
             self.figure.draw(renderer)

diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/testing/compare.py b/lib/matplotlib/testing/compare.py
@@ -306,6 +306,36 @@ def compare_images( expected, actual, tol, in_decorator=False ):
    expectedImage = expectedImage.astype(np.int16)
    actualImage = actualImage.astype(np.int16)
 
+   # compare the resulting image histogram functions
+   expected_version = version.LooseVersion("1.6")
+   found_version = version.LooseVersion(np.__version__)
+
+   # On Numpy 1.6, we can use bincount with minlength, which is much faster than
+   # using histogram
+   if found_version >= expected_version:
+      rms = 0
+
+      for i in xrange(0, 3):
+         h1p = expectedImage[:,:,i]
+         h2p = actualImage[:,:,i]
+
+         h1h = np.bincount(h1p.ravel(), minlength=256)
+         h2h = np.bincount(h2p.ravel(), minlength=256)
+
+         rms += np.sum(np.power((h1h-h2h), 2))
+   else:
+      rms = 0
+      ns = np.arange(257)
+
+      for i in xrange(0, 3):
+         h1p = expectedImage[:,:,i]
+         h2p = actualImage[:,:,i]
+
+         h1h = np.histogram(h1p, bins=ns)[0]
+         h2h = np.histogram(h2p, bins=ns)[0]
+
+         rms += np.sum(np.power((h1h-h2h), 2))
+
    rms = calculate_rms(expectedImage, actualImage)
 
    diff_image = make_test_filename(actual, 'failed-diff')