Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming

Coyote Graphics Plot Gallery

This is a gallery of example IDL programs and graphics plots, written using Coyote Graphics routines. Its purpose is to demonstrate the best programming practices for creating direct graphics graphical output in IDL. Click any image to see a larger representation of the graphical output. You will need to install the Coyote Library to run these programs successfully.

Each example program consists of an IDL procedure that will create the graphical output in an IDL graphics window. Following each program is a main-level IDL program that will run the example program and display the graphical output in both a normal IDL graphics window and in a resizeable graphics window. In addition, the main-level IDL program will create both a PostScript file and a PNG file of the graphical output. PNG file output requires that ImageMagick is installed properly on your machine. If this is not the case, simply remove or comment out the last line in the main-level program before running the program.

If these programs don't run as you think they should, please follow these steps to resolve the problem. You will need a version of the Coyote Library that was created on or after 14 January 2014 to run all the programs in the gallery.

Disclaimer for Function Graphics Code: For the most part the function graphics code available on this page was made available to me by Matthew Argall. I run the code (when possible) in IDL 8.2.3 and post the results. Your results may differ from mine. I don't know what to tell you. I have a hard time, occasionally, getting these programs to run correctly. For example, I just spent one and a half hours trying to get Matthew's basic contour plot to display correctly on my machine and the contour labels were still upside down. Later, we figured out how to right them. So, I'm just saying, use these function graphics routines at your own risk. If you find a better way of doing things, we would love to hear it.

Basic Line Plot *** Basic Line Plot *** Additional Information Basic Line Plot in Function Graphics

Line Plot with Legend *** Line Plot with Legend *** Additional Information Plot with Legend in Function Graphics

Line Plot with Legend *** Error Bar Plot *** Additional Information

Error Estimate Plot *** Error Estimate Plot *** Additional Information

Linear Trend Plot *** Linear Trend Plot *** Additional Information

Wavenumber Plot *** Wavenumber Plot *** Additional Information

Additional Axes Plot *** Additional Axes Plot *** Additional Information Additional Axes Plot

Filled Area Plot *** Filled Area Plot *** Additional Information Filled Area Plot

Filled Area Plot *** Filled Area Plot Colored by Height *** Additional Information Height Filled Area Plot

Ladder Plot *** Ladder Plot *** Additional Information

Ladder Plot *** Logarithmic Pressure Plot *** Additional Information

Grid on Line Plot *** Grid on Line Plot *** Additional Information

Colored Line Plots *** Colored Line Plots *** Additional Information

Zonal Wind Plot *** Zonal Wind Plot *** Additional Information

2D Scatter Plot *** 2D Scatter Plot *** Additional Information

Polar Plot *** Polar Plot *** Additional Information

Plot Within a Plot *** Plot Within a Plot *** Additional Information

Transparent Polygon Plot *** Transparent Polygon Plot *** Additional Information

Histogram Plot with Cumulative Probability *** Histogram Plot with Cumulative Probability *** Additional Information

Various Histogram Plots *** Various Histogram Plots *** Additional Information

Rotated Histogram Plot with Logarithmic Bins *** Rotated Histogram Plot with Logarithmic Bins *** Additional Information

Fitted Gaussian Plot *** Fitted Gaussian Plot *** Additional Information

Transparent Histogram Plot *** Transparent Histogram Plot *** Additional Information

 Basic Contour Plot *** Basic Contour Plot *** Additional Information Basic Line Plot in Function Graphics

Filled Contour Plot 1 *** Filled Contour Plot *** Additional Information Basic Line Plot in Function Graphics

Filled Contour Plot with Missing Data *** Filled Contour Plot with Missing Data *** Additional Information

Image Plot with Contours *** Image Plot with Contours Overlaid *** Additional Information Image Plot with Contours in Function Graphics

Zonal Wind Contour Plot *** Zonal Wind Contour Plot *** Additional Information

Filled Contours on a Global Map *** Filled Contours on a Global Map Projection *** Additional Information Contours on a Global Map in Function Graphics

Polar Wind Plot *** Polar Wind Filled Contour and Vector Plots *** Additional Information

Velocity Vector Plot *** Velocity Vector Plots *** Additional Information

Density Plot of Two Variables *** Density Plot of Two Variables with Contours Overlaid *** Additional Information

Small Contour Multiples Plot *** Small Contour Multiples Plot *** Additional Information

Multiple Plots with Full Annotation *** Multiple Plots with Annotations *** Additional Information

StreamFunction Plot with Greek Symbols *** StreamFunction Plot with Greek Symbols *** Additional Information

Curvilinear Extinction Plot *** Curvilinear Extinction Map Plot *** Additional Information

Taylor Diagram *** Taylor Diagram *** Additional Information

Wind Rose Plot *** Wind Rose Plot *** Additional Information

Anisotropy Pie Plot *** Anisotropy Pie Plot *** Additional Information

Dot Plot *** Dot Plot *** Additional Information

Box and Whisker Plot *** Box and Whisker Plot *** Additional Information

Bar Plot *** Bar Plot with Error Bars *** Additional Information

Overlapping Bar Plot *** Overlapping Bar Plot *** Additional Information

Symbol Plot with Legend *** Symbol Plot with Legend *** Additional Information

Google Map Plot *** Google Map Plot *** Additional Information

OpenStreetMap Plot *** OpenStreetMap Plot *** Additional Information

Multiple Image Plot *** Multiple Image Plot *** Additional Information

HDF-EOS Grid Plot *** HDF-EOS Grid Plot *** Additional Information

Surface Plots *** Surface Plots *** Additional Information

Fluence Plot *** Fluence Surface Plot *** Additional Information

3D Scatter Plot *** 3D Scatter Plot *** Additional Information

3D Scatter Plot on Map *** 3D Scatter Plot on Map *** Additional Information

NASA TOMS Satellite Aerosol Plot *** NASA TOMS Satellite Aerosol Plot *** Additional Information

GeoTiff Registered Image Plot *** GeoTiff Registered Image Plot *** Additional Information

GOES Image Plot with Associated Latitude and Longitude Pixel Values *** GOES Image Plot with Associated Lat/Lon Pixel Values *** Additional Information

GOES GeoTiff Image Plot *** GOES GeoTiff Image Plot *** Additional Information

GOES-15 Geostationary Image Plot *** GOES-15 Geostationary Image Plot *** Additional Information

Shapefile Plot *** Shapefile Plot *** Additional Information

Transparent Polygon Shape on Map Plot *** Transparent Polygon on Map Plot *** Additional Information

GSHHS Database Plot *** GSHHS Database Plot *** Additional Information

Overlay of Point Source Data on a Map *** Overlay of Point Source Data on a Map *** Additional Information

Latent Heat Flux Plot from HDF5 Data *** Latent Surface Heat Flux Plot from NASA HDF5 Data *** Additional Information

Hidden Surface Plot *** Hidden Surface Plot *** Additional Information

Isosurface Plot of 3D Data *** Isosurface Plot of 3D Data *** Additional Information

Sun Terminator Plot *** Sun Terminator Plot *** Additional Information

Penguin Colony Plot *** Penguin Colony Plot *** Additional Information

Lidar Range Plot *** Lidar Range Plot *** Additional Information

Lidar TrackPlot *** Lidar Track Plot with HDF5 Data *** Additional Information

Mean US Temperature Plot with netCDF Data *** Mean US Temperature Plot with netCDF Data *** Additional Information

Multiple Transparent Images *** Multiple Transparent Images *** Additional Information

Preparing Data for Display on Google Earth *** Preparing Data for Display on Google Earth *** Additional Information

Creating an AVI Movie Animation *** Creating an AVI Movie Animation *** Additional Information

Creating an MPG-4 Movie Animation *** Creating an MPG-4 Movie Animation *** Additional Information

Copyright © 2013 David W. Fanning
Written 27 January 2013
Updated 28 February 2014