| Re: controlling itools (low level) [message #36376] |
Mon, 15 September 2003 01:31 |
Craig Markwardt
Messages: 1869
Registered: November 1996
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Senior Member |
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"Richard G. French" <rfrench@wellesley.edu> writes:
>
> I hope that itools will make it possible to tweak an image interactively,
> but then to preserve all of the information necessary to regenerate the
> image from scratch using IDL code. Add my name to the list of people
> interested in learning how to do this.
Dick, your audit trail approach is exactly what I do as well. I
attended RSI's IDL 6.0 presentation where I work, and many many other
attendees were asking the same questions that you and I were. Namely:
can I substitute other data into the same plot template? How do I
track the history? Can I save it as a script? I did not see any
demonstrated mechanism to export a script. The iTools format is an
opaque binary format which is certainly not a script.
The current answer from RSI was, "we can't do that now, but we're
*real* keen on this for a future release!" (paraphrase)
Alas, from what I saw, RSI would be focussing on the templating
aspect, not the "audit trail." However, I think it is important for
RSI to realize that if you can export the plot configuration, then
that script *is* the template as well. I imagine that most of what
the batch-processing people want is to tweak the format template
interactively using iTools, export a script which has placeholders for
the data, and then incorporate that script into their batch programs.
Craig
--
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Craig B. Markwardt, Ph.D. EMAIL: craigmnet@cow.physics.wisc.edu
Astrophysics, IDL, Finance, Derivatives | Remove "net" for better response
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| Re: controlling itools (low level) [message #36378 is a reply to message #36376] |
Sun, 14 September 2003 19:30  |
Richard French
Messages: 173
Registered: December 2000
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Senior Member |
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On 9/12/03 4:56 AM, in article bjs1n0$j99$1@news.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de, "Olaf
Stetzer" <olaf.stetzer@imk.fzk.de> wrote:
> I understand, that the priority in creating the itools
> was on interactive control, but it would be very nice
> to control everything from IDL code as well.
When I use IDL to generate figures for publication, I like to have an
executable IDL routine (usually, a main program) that non-interactively
generates a final figure. The routine is my 'audit trail' that guarantees
that I can reproduce the figure exactly. If I need to change the figure
later, I can isolate the parts of the routine that need to be modified. This
is very different from, say, using Adobe Photoshop to twiddle with the
contrast of an image, crop it on the fly, unsharp mask it so that it suits
the eye, and save the final result, but not be able to regenerate the final
image byte-for-byte because it is all done interactively without keeping
detailed records of the quantitative processing done at each step.
I hope that itools will make it possible to tweak an image interactively,
but then to preserve all of the information necessary to regenerate the
image from scratch using IDL code. Add my name to the list of people
interested in learning how to do this.
Dick French
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| Re: controlling itools (low level) [message #36392 is a reply to message #36391] |
Fri, 12 September 2003 05:42 |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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Olaf Stetzer writes:
> Even the itools developers
> guide seems to be not very helpful here (I admit I had just a
> short look through it though).
Well, I've ground my way through it at least twice,
and I've come to the conclusion that half of it
must be missing. :-(
On the other hand, I've been making pretty good
progress with some of the things RSI has put into
IDL explicitly for the iTools. The property sheet
widgets will be fabulous (once I learn how to make
them work right), and they have done wonderful things
with tree widgets (all the browsers in iTools, for
example). But I have found error handing and
documentation to be...well, "basic" might be a nice
way to put it. :-)
And I *love* this syntax:
IF ~ok THEN outahere
Cheers,
David
P.S. Let's just say I'm thinking of doubling down
on my bet that precious few of RSI's customers
will have the wherewithal to make even modest
changes to the supplied iTools.
--
David W. Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Phone: 970-221-0438, E-mail: david@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155
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