idt
Description
idt provides a graphical user interface to the NCAR
View interactive metafile translator ictrans. idt supports a
subset of the ictrans command interface.
idt provides two types of command panels for
interacting with imagery. The first type is the control panel, which
you see when you initially invoke idt. The control panel
displays messages from the translators, provides a metafile selection
utility and is responsible for instantiating the second type of
command panel, the display panel. The display panel provides
mechanisms for controlling translators. Each display panel manages a
single metafile translator. There can be multiple display panels in
existence at the same time but only one control panel.
Synopsis
idt
[-toolkitoption ...]
[-background color]
[-f font]
[-foreground color]
[-history]
[-lmin min]
[-lmax max]
[-lscale scale]
[-pal pal_fname]
[-reverse]
[-soft]
[-Version]
metafile
Options
idt accepts all of the standard X Toolkit command
line options (see X(1)). idt also accepts the
following options:
- -f fontcap
- Fontcap file to be used for stroking text. When interpreting CGM
TEXT command elements use fontcap as the
default font for textual translation. Note: CGMs may contain textual
descriptions which are not embedded in CGM TEXT
elements. Hence they are not influenced by fontcap
specifications. Note also that a CGM may explicitly specify a named
font which may override a font provided on the command line. The
environment variable FONTCAP may also be used to specify a default
fontcap.
If fontcap is preceded by a UNIX directory path then
ctrans will look in that directory for the specified
fontcap. Otherwise idt searches the directory
$NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/fontcaps for the fontcap.
See fontcap for a description of the
available fontcaps. See fcap for a list of the
fontcaps installed on your system.
This option overrides the FONTCAP environment
variable.
- -history
- Write a record of all commands sent to the translator to the file
~/.idthist
- -Version
- Print the version number and then exit.
The following options are ignored by idt and are passed on to
the metafile translator ictrans. See ictrans for a description of their use.
-soft
-lmin linewidth
-lmax linewidth
-lscale linewidth
-pal pal_fname
-foreground color
-background color
-reverse
Control panel commands
The control panel provides a text widget for displaying messages from
the translators and a row of command buttons. Messages are preceded
with the string "Display[X]", where "X" is an integer id associated
with the translator sending the message. The first translator spawned
is "Display[0]", the second is "Display[1]", etc.
- select file
- Selects a file for
translation. This button brings up a popup menu containing a file
selection box. The uppermost dialog box of the file selection box is
used for specifying a filter for searching for files. For example, the
filter /usr/local/lib/*.cgm finds all files in the
directory /usr/local/lib whose names end with
".cgm". The finder understands standard shell metacharacters.
The bottom dialog box displays the currently selected file. The user
may enter a file name here or select one with the mouse from the list
of files displayed in the middle text widget.
- display
- Popup a display panel. A display panel is popped up ready for
translation of the file most recently selected with the file
selector. This command will fail if a file has not been selected.
- quit
- Quits the application and terminates all translators.
Display panel commands
The display panel provides a mechanism for manipulating the translator
associated with a particular metafile. On most systems the name of the
metafile appears in the title bar at the top of the panel. The
first row in the panel contains a scroll bar for randomly selecting
a frame to be translated. The label bar to the right displays the number
of the frame scrolled to. The panel
is intended to resemble a video tape editor. Thus, the second row
contains play back, jog back, stop, jog and play buttons, respectively.
The third and forth rows contain more complex display commands.
- loop
- Toggle the looping mode on or off. When loop is on pressing the play
(playback) button causes the translator to process all the frames in the
segment sequentially (reverse sequentially) and then start over from
the beginning (end). The process continues until the "stop" button
is selected. By default loop mode is off.
- dup
- Sets duplication variable. If dup is set to 1
each frame is displayed once, if dup is set to 2 each
frame is displayed twice, etc. The default value of dup is
1.
- goto
- Go to the specified frame and translate it. goto
provides random access to the frames contained in the
metafile.
- skip
- Set the skip variable. If skip is set to 1 every
other frame is displayed during subsequent plays, if skip is set to
2 every third frame is displayed, etc. The default
value for skip is 0.
- delay
- Set the between-frame animation delay-time. When
idt is in animation mode you may request that
idt pause for a period of time between the display
of each image. The effect of setting a delay time is to govern the
speed at which idt "plays" imagery.
- start segment
- Define the first frame in the segment. This button and the
stop segment button define a segment which is a
subset of the frames contained in the metafile. When in play
(playback) mode only the frames contained within the defined segment
are translated. The default value for start segment
is 1, the first frame in the file.
- stop segment
- Define the last frame in the segment. The default frame is the
last frame in the file. Hence, by default the segment is the entire
metafile.
- set window
- Specify the workstation window (in the GKS sense). Four
coordinates are specified which define a rectangular window which is a
subset of normalized VDC rectangle with corner points (0,0) and
(1.0,1.0). The specified window is then mapped onto the entire
viewport. For example, if the workstation window is defined by the
corner points (0,0) and (0.5 0.5) then the lower left quarter of a
plot would be blown up to fill the largest rectangle which fits in the
drawing window while retaining the aspect ratio described by the
normalized coordinates. Specification of such a window can be used
for zooming and panning.
- done
- Terminate processing of current metafile.
- current frame
- Update the "Scrolled to Frame ->" label box with
the number of the current frame.
- print
- Send the current frame to the printer. The print
command brings up a menu of all devices configured for accepting
translator output. This list is created dynamically in response to
changes in the spooler configuration file (see ncarv_spool). Selecting an item from the
menu causes the current frame to be sent to that device.
- save
- Save a frame to a file. This command allows you to write the metacode
for the current frame to a file. The result is a complete NCAR
Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) containing a single frame.
- unzoom
- Reset windowing transformations previously set by the
zoom command back to their default.
- zoom
- Zoom in on an area of a plot. The function of this command is
identical to that of the window command. The
zoom command, however, allows you to select the area
of interest interactively with the mouse.
- animate
- Toggle animation mode on or off. When idt is put
into animation mode the currently defined segment is rasterized with
the translator and loaded into the X server memory. Subsequent
idt commands operate on the memory-resident
images. Not all idt commands are available in
animation mode. By default animation is off.
Resources
As with all standard X applications, idt may be
customized through entries in the resource manager. In the following
list of application resources provided by idt the
resource name is given followed by its class in parentheses. These
resources supplement the resources provided by the widgets themselves.
- history (Class History)
- Specify whether a history of commands sent to the metafile
translators is recorded to the file ~/.idthist or
not. The default for this resource is "False".
- fileSelectAction (Class FileSelectAction)
- Set the default action to be executed after a file has been
selected with the file selection box. Currently the only value this
resource understands is "display".
- messageHeight (Class MessageHeight)
- Set the height in lines of text of the message display panel.
- translatorDevice (Class TranslatorDevice)
- Specify the output device for metafile translation. The default for this
resource is "X11".
- translatorFont (Class TranslatorFont)
- Specify the name of the fontcap to use for stroking text during
metafile translation. The default value for this resource is "font1".
- translatorSoft (Class TranslatorSoft)
- Specifies the ictrans "-soft" option.
- translatorLmin (Class TranslatorLmin)
- Specifies the ictrans "-lmin" option.
- translatorLmax (Class TranslatorLmax)
- Specifies the ictrans "-lmax" option.
- translatorLscale (Class TranslatorLscale)
- Specifies the ictrans "-lscale" option.
- translatorForeground (Class TranslatorForeground)
- Specifies the ictrans "-foreground" option.
- translatorBackground (Class TranslatorBackground)
- Specifies the ictrans "-background" option.
- translatorReverse (Class TranslatorReverse)
- Specifies the ictrans "-reverse" option.
Actions
idt provides the following actions for use in event
translation:
- FinderTranslation()
- This action causes the file selector popup to search for files
using the key supplied in the file finder text box.
- OkFinderTranslation()
- This action notifies the file selector that a selection has been made.
- SelectFileTranslation()
- This action updates the text box in the file selector which
displays the currently selected file.
- OkSDTranslation()
- This action confirms a selection made in one of the display panel
popup dialog boxes.
Widgets
In order to specify resources, it is useful to know the hierarchy
of the widgets which make up
idt.
In the notation below, indentation indicates hierarchal structure. The
widget class name is given first, followed by the widget instance name.
Idt idt
Paned paned
Text text
Form form
Command select file
Command display
TopLevelShell ??>
Paned paned
Core canvas /* This is the drawing canvas
Form form
Scrollbar scrollbar
Label Scrolled to Frame ->
Form form
Command playback
Command jogback
Command stop
Command jog
Command play
Form form
Toggle loop
Command dup
Command goto
Command skip
Command delay
Command start segment
Command stop segment
Command set window
Form form
Command done
Command current frame
MenuButton print
SimpleMenu menu
SmeBSB ??>
SmeBSB ??>
SmeBSB ??>
|
|
dynamically configured
|
|
SmeBSB ??>
SmeBSB ??>
Command save
Command zoom
Command unzoom
Toggle animate
Grip grip
Grip grip
Grip grip
Grip grip
Grip grip
Command quit
Grip grip
Grip grip
Examples
The following resource specification can be used to set the default size
of the graphics display window to 200 by 200 pixels:
Idt*canvas.width: 200
Idt*canvas.height: 200
If you want to place the control panel in the top right corner insert the
following into your .Xdefaults file:
idt.geometry: -0+0
Environment
- DISPLAY
- This is the standard X environment variable
for specifying display name. If the translation output device is
X11 this variable MUST be set.
- FONTCAP
- Default fontcap specifier.
- NCARG_ROOT
- Path to root of NCAR Graphics installation.
- NCARG_LIB
- If set this variable contains the path to
the installed NCAR Graphics libraries.
NCARG_LIB
overrides NCARG_ROOT.
- NCARG_TMP
- If set, this environment variable
contains a directory path to be used for temporary files. On most
systems the default is /tmp. On some systems the
default is /usr/tmp.
- SHELL
- Specifies the UNIX shell that the file
selector is to use for expanding metacharacters. /bin/sh is used by
default.
- XENVIRONMENT
- Specifies the name of a resource file
that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER
property.
Files
~\.idthist - Translator command history file
$NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/xapp/Idt - Default resource file for
idt
$HOME/.ncarv_spool - User spooler configuration file
$NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/ncarv_spool - System spooler
configuration file
See also
ctrans,
fcaps,
gcaps,
ictrans,
ncarv_spool,
X,
xrdb
Bugs
Zooming in on large cell arrays causes the translator to crash.
Caveats
The metafile file translation process is performed by spawning the
ictrans translator. ictrans does
not understand standard X Toolkit options. Hence, the DISPLAY
environment variable must be set when translating a metafile to be
displayed in a window.
You can not save "zoomed" plots to a file. More precisely, you may
save a "zoomed" plot, however, the resultant plot will not be
"zoomed".
The "Scrolled to Frame" label is not continuously updated.
The range with which one may zoom in on a plot with either the
zoom or window command is severely
limited by Xlibs use of 'short' integers for containing screen
coordinate data.
IRIX 4.x users should not set use the shared memory connection to their
X server. i.e don't use the display shm:0.
Background color changes don't work when idt is in
animate mode. idt will use whatever color was most
recently set in the animation segment for the entire segment.
Copyright
Copyright © 1987-1999
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
The use of this
software and documentation is governed by a License Agreement.