ncargintro

Synopsis

Description

1. The low-level utilities (LLUs) are the traditional C and Fortran interfaces for contouring, mapping, drawing field flows, drawing surfaces, drawing histograms, drawing X/Y plots, labeling, and more.
2. The high-level utilities (HLUs) are a high level programmatic interface with both C and Fortran bindings. The range of functionality of the HLUs is exercised by setting option switches, called resources. Resources can be set in a text file, so a plot can be redrawn without a recompile.
3. The NCAR Command Language (NCL) is a full programming language including looping and conditionals for data selection, manipulation, and display. NCL commands can be executed one at a time from the command line, or can be gathered into a series of commands, called a script, and executed in a batch mode. Output from these interfaces can be directed in a combination of three ways: an NCGM (NCAR Graphics Computer Graphics Metafile), an X11 window, or one of many PostScript outputs (regular, Encapsulated, or Interchange PostScript format). Other formats are available through NCGM translators and accompanying device drivers.

Environment variables

If the NCAR Graphics binaries, libraries, and include files were installed under one root directory, say for example /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib, and /usr/local/include respectively, then you'll need to do the following:

	setenv NCARG_ROOT /usr/local

	setenv NCARG_BIN /usr/local/ncarg/bin
	setenv NCARG_LIB /usr/local/ncarg/lib
	setenv NCARG_INCLUDE /usr/local/include

The environment variable NCARG_GKS_PSOUTPUT may be used to direct the PostScript output from the NCAR Graphics GKS package to a file (stdout is allowed).

The environment variables GRAPHCAP and FONTCAP may be used to tell the NCGM translators "ctrans", "ictrans" and "idt" what default "graphcap" and "fontcap" to use. See ctrans, ictrans, and idt for more information.

The environment variable DISPLAY is not actually used by the translators; if you are using X Windows, it determines where the translator output is to be displayed.

See also

Commands which facilitate compiling and running with NCAR Graphics:

nhlf77, nhlcc, ncargf77, ncargcc, ncargpath, ncargrun

NCAR Command Language: ncl

Fortran utilities in NCAR Graphics:

areas, autograph, bivar, colconv, conpack, dashline, dashpack, ezmap, gflash, gks, gridall, histogram, isosurface, labelbar, ngmisc, plotchar, softfill, surface, scrolled_title, streamlines, threed, tdpack, vectors, wmap

NCGM translators:

ctrans, ictrans, idt, med

Raster formats and applications:

ras_formats, ras_palette, rascat, rasview, rasls, rasgetpal

LLU NCAR Graphics C-binding:

ncarg_cbind ncarg_gks_cbind

Descriptions of environment variables: ncarg_env

Descriptions of fontcaps and graphcaps:

fcaps, fontcap, gcaps, graphcap

Metafile filters:

cgm2ncgm ncgm2cgm, pre2ncgm, psblack, pswhite,

A command which tells you what version of NCAR Graphics you are using: ncargversion

Utilities for generating NCAR Graphics Fortran, C, and NCL examples: ng4ex ncargex

Utilities for giving you access to special NCAR Graphics files and/or tables: ncargfile

Programs for generating sample NCGMs: ncargworld, tgks0a

Online documentation: NCAR Graphics User Guide, NCAR Graphics Reference Manual, NCAR Graphics Quick Start Guide, NCAR Graphics Contouring and Mapping Tutorial, NCAR Graphics Fundamentals, User's Guide for NCAR GKS-0A Graphics, NCAR Graphics Release Notes

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