en Copyright 1997-2011, David W. Fanning david@idlcoyote.com (David Fanning) Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:55:42 GMT david@idlcoyote.com (David Fanning) http://www.idlcoyote.com/index.html IDL Programming Tips and Examples http://www.idlcoyote.com/images/coyote_tips.jpg http://www.idlcoyote.com/index.html http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgblendimage.pro I added a new WINDOW keyword to this program to allow the program to obtain the foreground and background images it is to blend directly from graphics windows that are already on the display. article 894 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:55:42 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgdisplay.pro I added FORCE and MATCH keywords to this program. The FORCE keyword will force a window to open on the graphics display, even when it might not open (because of interactions with cgWindows) normally. The MATCH keyword causes the window to match the size of the current graphics window, if there is one. article 893 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:55:42 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/ncdf_file__define.pro I added the keyword NETCDF4_FORMAT to the INIT method, so you can create netCDF files with extended memory, even in version 7.1 of IDL. article 892 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:55:42 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgimage.pro It turns out I was not passing the correct MAXVALUE and MINVALUE keywords to the routine that does the image scaling. Thus, all images were being scaled into the range 0 to 255. This is now corrected. article 891 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:17 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgpixmap.pro This is a resizeable graphics window exactly like cgWindow (i.e., it accepts the same keywords, etc.) except that it is (normally!) invisible. Since it is invisible, it can be used as a pixmap (an invisible graphics window). The only difference with cgWindow is that this program is written as a function that returns the object reference that is at the heart of the program. This makes it much easier to handle the pixmap and its properties. article 890 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:25:31 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgpixmapwindow__define.pro This subclassed cgCmdWindow object allows a resizeable command window to be used as a pixmap (an invisible graphics window). One nice feature of this pixmap, is that you can actually see it, if necessary! Simply set the VISIBLE property of the object. article 889 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:25:31 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgcmdwindow__define.pro Two new methods have been added to this graphics window object. The COPY method allows you to copy (using the Device Copy technique) the contents of the graphics window to any other graphics window. The OUTPUT method makes it easier to produce hardcopy output files (PostScript, PDF, and raster files) by simply specifying the output file name. article 887 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:25:31 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgdisplay.pro This program has been updated to always allow a graphics window to be created if the program is called from the IDL command line. article 886 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:25:31 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/zip_files/coyoteprograms.zip The recent change to cgColor, in which a new "background" color was defined, has given me the opportunity to make it easier to handle color correctly in the Coyote Graphics routines. Thus, I have updated all of these routines to work better in whatever graphics environment you choose to use them in. They will now do the right thing in either black (Window command) or white (cgDisplay command) graphics windows. If no graphics window is open when the Coyote Graphics command is issued, cgDisplay will be used to open a window with a white background color. article 885 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:37:05 GMT http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftp/pro/plot/al_legend.pro This program has been updated to work more naturally with the resizeable graphics window cgWindow. The update also eliminates problems people were having using AL_Legend in cgWindows with multiple plots displayed in the window. To fully take advantage of this update, you will also need to update your cgColor program in the Coyote Library. article 884 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:30:08 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgcolor.pro I added the color "Background" has been added to cgColor to complement the color "Opposite". (Background is the opposite of Opposite!) This has been done primarily for the convenience of the AL_Legend command, used with the Clear keyword. article 883 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:30:08 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgerrplot.pro This program is a drop-in replacement for the IDL program ErrPlot. It uses the same program syntax, except that colors can now be expressed as color names. article 882 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:51:24 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/store/index.php All books and software in the Coyote inventory are on-sale until the end of the month at 25 to 50 percent savings. You won't find the books this cheap again until the bankruptcy sale! article 881 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:03:55 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/reading/coyote_reading.php Coyote's January book reviews have been updated, and his Top Five Books in 2011 have been selected. article 880 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:14:45 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgbarplot.pro A new keyword, BarCoords, has been added to this program to obtain the output locations of each bar that is added to the plot. With the output locations in hard, it is easy to add, for example, error bars and other annotations to the bar plot. article 879 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:14:45 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgwindow.pro This program, at the heart of the Coyote Graphics System, has been modified extensively so that now it is simply an API or "skin" for the more powerful underlying draw widget object, cgCmdWindow. This will allow user to write programs with much more powerful functionality and interaction with the command window than was possible previously. article 878 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:14:45 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgcmdwindow__define.pro My original idea for cgWindow was to create a resizeable graphics window that could re-draw any kind of an IDL graphics command. Now I want more. In fact, what I want is a smart draw widget that I can use not only for drawing any IDL command in a graphics window, but I can also use for processing user interaction in the graphics window. To achieve this goal, I have separated the functional object in the original cgWindow program out of cgWindow and put it in its program, cgcmdwindow__define.pro. The cgWindow program is now simply a "skin" or "shell" for a very limited portion of the "functionality" of this smart object-widget. You can use this object-widget exactly like any other draw widget in your graphical user interface. article 877 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:14:45 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/code_tips/evenlog.php This article describes how to create an evenly spaced vector of points in logarithmic space. The procedure was discussed recently on the IDL newsgroup. article 876 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:03:44 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgloggen.pro This program creates an evenly spaced vector of points in logarithmic space between two end points. article 875 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:03:44 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/xcolors.pro In IDL 7, a change was made to the X Windows driver that made it impossible to both get the current color mode and set it on the same Device command, using Get_Decomposed and Decomposed keywords. You now have to do this in two steps (e.g., see the GetDecomposed of SetDecomposedState Coyote Library programs) on UNIX machines. For some reason, this change was never propogated to XColors, which caused color problems for UNIX users. (Nor was it reported to me, which makes it hard to fix!!) This version of XColors now uses SetDecomposedState to change the color mode, which will correct these color problems. article 874 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:04:53 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgdefaultfont.pro Recent changes to this program to more accurately predict what a user is trying to do when he or she specifies a color with a long integer was a little too successful! In particular, it was flagging 24-bit color values as color indices as the user transitioned from an 8-bit PostScript device to a 24-bit PostScript device. Since this transition occurs nearly every time I make a PostScript file (who really sets their PostScript device up as a 24-bit device and leaves it there!?), I decided to ignore the MODE keyword in the PostScript device and always get the current mode at the time this program is called. Users who specify their colors as color names, as Coyote Graphics programs are designed to accommodate, will be unaffected by this change. article 873 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:04:53 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/cg_tips/scatter2d.php This article discusses how to use cgScatter2D to create two-dimensional scatter plots in IDL. In this program I have experimented with some interesting new graphics features, such as displaying a plot with a grid in the background and with a solid fill color in the region of the plot enclosed by axes. Keywords allow full control of all features. article 872 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:37:43 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgscatter2d.pro This is a 2D scatter plot program in the Coyote Graphics tradition. The Pearson correlation coefficient and the parameters for fitting a straight line through the data are calculated and the best-fit line is (optionally) plotted on the line. Output variables allow you to recover the correlation and fitting parameters from the program. Like all Coyote Graphics routines, you can display the plot is a resizeable graphics window and create PostScript, PDF, and raster file output directly from the command. article 871 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:37:43 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgwindow.pro I have added the ability to pass a fourth positional parameter to cgWindow. This has been done primarily to accommodate PlotError and OPlotError in the NASA Astronomy Library. Changes to these routines will be available shortly that will make these routines several orders of magnitude faster than they were previously. (In tests with 4096 data points, error bars that previously took about 20 seconds to render are now rendering in about 0.5 seconds.) article 870 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:10:48 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/reading/coyote_reading_2011.php After a lot of hemming and hawing, Coyote has finally selected his five favorite books for 2011. As always, the choice is excruciating, but these are five books that are well worth your time reading! article 869 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:09:25 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/cg_tips/compcont.php I have used some NCEP reanalysis map projected temperature data and shown how to add filled contour plots to the map projection in the Direct, Coyote, and Function graphics systems in IDL. The data and the program I used in the comparison is available from links in the article if you want to play with this yourself. article 868 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 04 Jan 2012 04:56:53 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgplots.pro I added a MAP_OBJECT keyword to this program to accept a cgMap object. If given such an object, longitude and latitude values will be converted to the projected meter coordinate system set up with cgMap and will be drawn on top of map projections set up with the cgMap object. article 867 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:22:57 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/map_tips/eosgrid.php HDF-EOS grid files store their map projection information in a compact way that makes the file much smaller than it would be otherwise. This is a good thing, but it makes it more difficult to set up the map projection space. This article explains how to browse an HDF-EOS grid file for the information you need to set up the map projection and to display a grid field as a filled contour plot on that map projection. article 866 at idlcoyote.com Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:17:21 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cghistogram.pro I've modified this program several times in the past week or so, and always incorrectly! I think I finally have it right. Sorry for the confusion, and thanks to the many concerned people who wrote me. I am investigating how I can improve my testing procedures. article 865 at idlcoyote.com Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:17:21 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgcontour.pro This program has been modified with a new Map_Object keyword that can accept a cgMap object containing map projection information. This keyword makes it much simpler to place a filled or regular contour plot onto a map projection that has been set up with Map_Proj_Init. article 864 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:26:57 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/ps_start.pro This program has been modified with a new filename parameter to make it more natural to specify the output file name. Also, the output file name previously could be modified by the program in certain circumstances and returned in a slightly different form from the program. This no longer occurs. article 863 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:26:57 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/documents/cg_maps.php This program has been modified to be able to read GeoTiff files that have been created from HDF-EOS grid files with the NASA-provided HDF to GeoTiff tool, HEG, version 2.11. article 862 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:26:57 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/map_tips/goestiffimg.php This article describes how to navigate and annotate a GOES East or West GeoTiff image using routines from the Coyote Graphics library. article 861 at idlcoyote.com Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:32:46 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/documents/cg_maps.php This program has been modified so that it can read GOES East and West GeoTiff images and automatically create a map coordinate object from the file. article 860 at idlcoyote.com Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:32:46 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgsnapshot.pro I modified this program so that the file output type (e.g., PNG, JPEG, etc.) can now be selected from the file extension of the output file name. article 859 at idlcoyote.com Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:32:46 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/cg_tips/configz.php This article describes some of the problems people were having with the Z-graphics buffer when combining legacy IDL programs with Coyote Graphics programs. The problem and solution are explained, and several suggestions for working around the problem are offered. article 858 at idlcoyote.com Sun, 25 Dec 2011 15:34:11 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/zip_files/coyoteprograms.zip Changes in the way default colors and the Z-graphics buffer are handled in Coyote Graphics programs has required program updates of about a dozen Coyote Library programs. You are strongly encouraged to update your Coyote Library installation. article 857 at idlcoyote.com Sun, 25 Dec 2011 15:34:11 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/setdecomposedstate.pro In the past, SetDecomposedState set the Z-graphics buffer up as a 24-bit window using color decomposition (the preferred state for all Coyote Graphics output). Unfortuately, because of the way the Z-graphics buffer works, it was not possible to restore the Z-buffer to its input state, which is normally an 8-bit device using indexed color. (Doing so erases the contents of the Z-buffer.) Leaving the Z-buffer in the 24-bit state has caused programs for users of legacy IDL code. Therefore, I have removed the Z-graphics buffer from control of this program and will leave it up to each user to configue the Z-graphics buffer appropriately for their purpose. A new Coyote article describes the problem and solution in more detail. article 856 at idlcoyote.com Sun, 25 Dec 2011 15:34:11 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgdefaultcolor.pro This is a new Coyote Library utility program for selecting default colors that can be used in Coyote Graphics routines. The primary motivation for the program is to be able to more easily handle long integers that are being used in legacy IDL code as color table indices. If a long integer is passed as the input color, it is now turned into a color table index string, if the user is using the indexed color mode at the time the program is run. Many Coyote Graphics routines have been updated to take advantage of this new functionality. article 855 at idlcoyote.com Sun, 25 Dec 2011 15:34:11 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgrandomindices.pro This is a new Coyote Library utility program for selecting random indices from a random selection vector without replacement. In other words, the function returns unique indices from the selection vector. It uses a JD Smith algorithm, so is very efficient, even with extremely large selection vectors. article 854 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:30:11 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/cg_tips/cgwfg.php This article describes an experiment in which four different types of output (encapsulated PostScript, PDF, PNG, and JPEG) from Coyote Graphics and the new IDL 8 Function Graphics were compared at three different resolutions (600, 300, and 75 dpi). The bottom line is that Coyote Graphics generally produces files that are smaller in size, but that the quality of the output is comparable in both cases. Sample files are available for download in the article, as is the code I used to conduct the experiment. article 853 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:23:45 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/zip_files/coyoteprograms.zip About a dozen Coyote Graphics programs were modified to allow control over how their output files (PS, PDF, raster files, etc.) are created. These parameters are now controlled by cgWindow_SetDefs, as they are for the output file parameters in cgWindow. Such control allows the user to control the size and resolution of the output files. article 852 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:23:45 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgtext.pro This program has been modified to allow the Place keyword, which is used to place text in the graphics window, to work correct in a resizeable cgWindow, too. article 851 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:23:45 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/cg_tips/wrongsym.php This article describes a situation in which Coyote Graphics commands produce the correct symbols in a normal IDL graphics window, but produce incorrect symbols when the same commands are added to a resizeable graphics window. The article explains what is happening and shows how the Coyote Graphics commands should be written to work correctly in both environments. article 850 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:58:49 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/idldoc/cg/cgps2raster.html This new program is a complement to cgPS2PDF and is provided to make explicit some Coyote Graphics functionality that is already present in other Coyote Graphics programs, such as PS_End. article 849 at idlcoyote.com Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:23:12 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/cg_tips/cgoutput.php This article describes new Coyote Graphics functionality which makes it possible to create PostScript, encapsulated PostScript, PDF, BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, or TIFF file output directly from basic Coyote Graphics commands. The commands currently supplied with this functionality are cgBarPlot, cgBoxPlot, cgContour, cgHistoPlot, cgImage, cgPlot, cgSurf, and cgWindow. These and other programs have been modified. It is highly recommended that you update your Coyote Library as soon as possible to take advantage of this exciting new functionality. article 848 at idlcoyote.com Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:16:53 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/fileio_tips/createpdf.php This article describes the new Coyote Graphics program, cgPS2PDF, and how to use it to produce PDF files from PostScript intermediate files. article 847 at idlcoyote.com Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:16:53 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/color_tips/oobcolors.php This article describes how to add out-of-bounds or out-of-range color triangles to the Coyote Graphics color bar program, cgColorbar. article 846 at idlcoyote.com Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:16:53 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/zip_files/coyoteprograms.zip Coyote Graphics display routines have been modified so that they can be output directly to PostScript, encapsulated PostScript, PDF, BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, or TIFF files. The new OUTPUT keyword selects the output file type, and the optional OUTFILENAME keywords selects the output file name. Or, you can use the OUTPUT keyword directly to specify both the output type (from the file extension) and the output file name. The Coyote Graphics routines affected are: cgBarPlot, cgBoxPlot, cgContour, cgHistoPlot, cgImage, cgPlot, and cgSurf. article 845 at idlcoyote.com Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:18:35 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/idldoc/cg/conlevels.html This program as written to produce evenly spaced, but nicely formatted contour intervals, despite the data range. It makes good guesses for how contour intevals should be "rounded" and allows easy fine tuning by the user if the guess is not adequate. article 844 at idlcoyote.com Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:18:35 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/zip_files/coyoteprograms.zip In the past week 28 of the 41 Coyote Graphics programs have been modified. Most of these changes were to update the documentation to the IDLDOC rst format, but there were changes to other important Coyote Graphics programs as well. Please update your Coyote Library to take advantage of these important changes. article 843 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:40:08 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/idldoc/cg/index.html On-line documentation is now available for all 41 of the Coyote Graphics programs. (These are a subset of the programs in the Coyote Library.) This will make it much easier to use these Coyote Graphics programs. article 842 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:40:08 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgps2pdf.pro People use various programs to create PDF files from PostScript intermediate files. My purpose is not to reinvent the wheel, but to provide a machine-independent method to create PDF files from within the resizeable graphics window, cgWindow. This program maintains some degree of user flexibility, while providing this functionality. Many Coyote Graphics programs were changed to accommodate this new functionality, among them are cgWindow, cgControl, cgWindow_SetDefs, cgWindow_GetDefs, and PS_End. This would be a good time to update your Coyote Library! article 841 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:40:08 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgcolorbar.pro This program has been updated to allow "out-of_bounds" color triangles to be added to one or both ends of the color bar. The shape of the triangles can also be controlled. Also, a DISCRETE keyword has been added that will make the colors in the color bar be represented as discrete rectangles, in the manner of cgDCBar. article 840 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:40:08 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgcolor.pro This program has been changed to allow colors to be expressed as color triples (a three-element number array), or as byte or integer values. Number values (except for three-element arrays) will be treated as indices into the current color table. article 839 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:40:08 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgcontour.pro A new output keyword, OLevels, has been added to the program to allow the user to recover the actual contour levels the program calculates when the NLEVELS keyword is used to specify the number of contour levels. article 838 at idlcoyote.com Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:40:08 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/map_tips/uvrange.php Map_Proj_Init produces incorrect UV range values if the center longitude value is anything other than 0.0. This article describes the problem. The problem is corrected in the Coyote Graphics map projection routine, cgMap. article 837 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:40:42 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgplots.pro I fixed a bug in the program that caused line segments to be drawn in the wrong colors under certain circumstances. article 836 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:47:30 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgdisplay.pro I modified the ASPECT keyword so that an image could be passed as the argument to the keyword and the aspect ratio of the window could be determined from the aspect ratio of the image. article 835 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:47:30 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgimage.pro When I transitioned this file from TVImage to cgImage, I made a change that caused a problem with transparent images. That functionality has been restore and improved in this version. I also completely refurbished the internal documentation and cleaned the code up considerably. article 834 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:47:30 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgdisplay.pro I have added a new keyword, ASPECT, to this program so that I can create a display window with a particular aspect ratio (ysize/xsize). This allows me to create image windows with the correct image aspect ratio. article 833 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:21:05 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/idldoc/maps/cgdrawshapes.html This program has been added to the suite of Coyote Graphics programs that work with map projections. It displays shapefile entities on maps. Like all Coyote Graphics routines, it can be added to resizeable graphics windows for execution. article 832 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:09:23 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgdisplay.pro This program has been modified so that it will ignore the Window request if it is executed inside a cgWindow command. This allows you to create graphics windows in your graphics programs without worrying about how those same graphics programs can be used as commands in the resizeable graphics window, cgWindow. I would say this program is now essential for writing device-independent graphics programs. article 831 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:09:23 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgcontour.pro There was a problem with axes being drawn in the wrong location when filled contour plots were drawn in 3D space. This problem has been corrected in this release. article 830 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:09:23 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/documents/cg_maps.php One of the biggest omissions in the Coyote Graphics suite of programs when it was released was support for map projections in IDL. This has now been corrected with 10 programs that allow the user to use map projection software in the device-independent, color-aware manner of other Coyote Graphics programs. Map routines can be added to resizeable graphics windows or used at the IDL command line to create map coordinate spaces and to annotate maps with continental outlines and map grids. article 829 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:15:22 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgwindow_getdefs.pro I added an ASPECT keyword to allow the user to retrieve the window aspect ratio of any resizeable cgWindow. article 828 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:44:19 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgwindow_setdefs.pro I added an ASPECT keyword to allow the user to control the window aspect ratio of any resizeable cgWindow. If this keyword is set, the window maintains its aspect ratio when it is resized. article 827 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:44:19 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgcontrol.pro I added an ASPECT keyword to cgControl to allow the user to control the window aspect ratio of any current resizeable graphics window (cgWindow). If this keyword is set, the window maintains its aspect ratio when it is resized. article 826 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:44:19 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cgwindow.pro I added a WASPECT keyword to cgWindow to allow the user to control the window aspect ratio. If this keyword is set, the window maintains its aspect ratio when it is resized. This makes it much easier to handle georegistered images that should not change their aspect ratio in a particular map projection. article 825 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:44:19 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/map_tips/terminator.html The algorithm for creating the day/night terminator on a map projection of the Earth has been completely rewritten to produce more accurate color results. This program has also been brought up to date using the latest Coyote Graphics routines. article 824 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:17:01 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/ip_tips/snakes.php This ActiveContour program has been completely refurbished to work with Coyote Graphics routines. In addition, the contouring algorithm has been tweaked to produce more accurate results, and the program documentation has been completely rewritten. The test application that comes with the program to show you how to add active contouring to your own routines has been rewritten and heavily documented. article 823 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:17:01 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/errorlogger__define.pro A new ADD_CALLER keyword has been added to the AddText method that will allow the user to prepend the name of the program module that the error or message occurred in to the logged text. article 822 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:17:01 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/clipscl.pro There are images that do not lend themselves readily to being clipped. The algorithm in this program has been updated so that when such a perverse image in encountered, the program will simply issue a warning notice and byte scale the image. article 821 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:17:01 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/map_tips/nobounds.php The Map function in IDL 8.x is broken in that the XRANGE and YRANGE keywords do not work as described in the IDL documentation. This makes it impossible to create a map projection space that is coincident with an image. The map projection always "overflows" its bounds. This article describes the problem and demonstates several unsuccessful attempts to work around the problem. article 820 at idlcoyote.com Fri, 11 Nov 2011 04:20:34 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/cghistoplot.pro The algorithm for calculating and displaying the cumulative probability plot was incorrect and is now fixed for this program. article 819 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:34:46 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/map_tips/extralines.php Incorrect grid lines drawn by Map_Grid on map projections created with Map_Proj_Init are caused by a bug in Map_Proj_Forward. The problem can be solved by not using the POLYLINES keyword to Map_Proj_Forward in the Map_Grid code. article 818 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:11:00 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/misc_tips/badmatch.php An update to the Macintosh OSX 10.7.2 (Lion) update can cause some problems with Coyote Graphics routines. The problems manifest as the X windows protocol error: BadMatch. This article describes the problem and a work-around that can get your programs working again. article 817 at idlcoyote.com Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:34:32 GMT http://www.idlcoyote.com/map_tips/choosemap.php Care must be taken when using map projection names rather than map projection index numbers with Map_Proj_Init because silent substitution of old Map_Set projections for the more recent Map_Proj_Init projections can easily result in incorrect map projection results. This article gives an example and suggests that you always set the GCTP keyword to avoid this unexpected and silent substitution. article 816 at idlcoyote.com Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:29:09 GMT