However, it’s pointless or even counterproductive to embed the raw high-resolution data in the paper because it doesn’t show up in the rendered copy but balloons its size. For 6.5” (i.e., full width) figure printed at 300 dpi, you can only show 2100 points horizontally—-and realistically a lot less. Upload the raw traces somewhere and add a link.
Source: As a grad student, I stupidly turned a simple poster into a multi-gigabyte monstrosity by embedding lots of raw data. The guy at the print shop was not happy when it crashed his large-format printer!
Same! I've accidentally rendered a PDF monstrosity where every data point was represented in full vector graphic glory. It was absolutely enormous and dumb, because you couldn't tell that from the figure.
Generate high quality graphics, with the limitations of print, digital displays, and attention in mind. Then toss your data up on Zenodo and cite its DOI.
Obfuscating is the wrong word. "Decimate", "project", "render" are all better options, depending on what you mean. Punning render is the most fun of that lot, FWIW.
