| IDL graphics w/ no display [message #41415] |
Fri, 22 October 2004 15:21  |
KM
Messages: 29
Registered: October 2004
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Junior Member |
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Hi Again,
I used IDL daily from 1998 through 2002, but haven't since then, and
forgot a bit. I just started in on a big project using IDL, and am
looking for some suggestions/advice.
We are using IDL as a backend to produce map graphics. It is a
cross-platform program (Win/Mac) and the client wants it looking
mac-ish on the Mac side, hence IDL is the backend, not the frontend.
In fact, the deployment environment might not even have X11
installed! The front-end is also cross-platform, so on the Win side
I also won't access the display with IDL, only with the frontend,
just because this approach uses the same code for both Win and Mac.
So I am producing images in IDL in Z buffer, writing PNGs to disk,
and then telling the frontend (via a socket) that the image is
ready. It reads it in and display it in a mac/win-like UI.
But there are some limitations to this model.
1) Z buffer is limited to 256 colors. This is not a major
limitation, but it does exist
2) Z buffer text looks terrible.
3) front-end doesn't have native/fast EPS render support
I cannot use the "blow up * 4" trick for Z buffer text
[http://dfanning.com/graphics_tips/zfonts.html] because it is too
slow. I am using a very fast machine, but doing all the map stuff x4
introduces a 1 second lag.
I think I cannot use object graphics because I am working with map
projections, map_continents, etc. and these don't work with object
graphics, right?
Maybe I could do the map/grid/continents at regular scale in Z, read
them out, blow up z*4, print the title, colorbar labels, etc., read
them out, rebin to regular size, and then "print" the labels in the
image with a where statement. This might save a bit of time but
seems like quite a hack. Maybe thats what I have to do with no
access to the display. :/
I don't think callable IDL would help. That could replace the socket
and file->disk part, but it wouldn't help with the display. Plus, it
sounds complex.
Can anyone offer any advice/suggestions?
Thanks,
-k.
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