IDL Astronomy Library Routines Updated to Coyote Graphics
QUESTION: Can I use Coyote Graphics routines with the IDL Astronomy Library?
ANSWER: Yes, on 16 February 2011 Wayne Landsman updated approximately 20 plotting procedures in the NASA Goddard IDL Astronomy Library to use Coyote Graphics routines. The modified procedures include the following:
- AL_Legend — Create a legend for the plot.
- ArcBar — Draw an arcbar over an image showing the astronomical plate scale.
- Arrows — Given a FITS header, display a "weathervane" showing N-E orientation.
- HistoGauss — Outlier-resistant autoscaled histogram drawing
- IMContour — Contour plots with astronomical labeling.
- Legend_Test — Demo program demonstrating the capabilities of AL_Legend
- LineID_Plot — Annotate the identified lines in a spectrum.
- Multiplot — Create multiple plots with shared axes.
- One_Arrow — Draw an arrow labeled with a single character.
- One_Ray — Draw a ray by specifying starting point, angle, and length.
- OPlotError — Overplot Y vs. X with optional X and Y error bars.
- PartVelVec — Plot the velocity vectors of a set of particles.
- PlotError — Plot Y vs. X with optional X and Y error bars.
- PlotHist — Plot the histogram of an array.
- PlotSym — Define useful plotting symbols not in the standard PSYM definition.
- TVBox — Draw a box of specified size on the image display.
- TVCircle — Draw a circle of specified radius on the image display.
- TVEllipse — Draw an ellipse of specified axes on the image display.
Among the new features are the ability to specify a color by name, to plot to a resizable graphics window by simply setting a Window keyword, and to have the display plots appear almost exactly as they would in a PostScript file. One consquence of the last feature is that the default plot color scheme is now black annotation on a white background. Otherwise, legacy programs that use these procedures will work exactly as before.
Version of IDL used to prepare this article: IDL 7.0.1.