Practical IDL Programming / Edition 1

by Liam E. Gumley

Overview

"Precisely the book I wished to have available when Ifirst learned IDL"
Martin Schultz, Max Planck Institut fuer Meteorologie

"A well presented explanation of the practical application of IDL"
Paul van Delst, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"A fantastic achievement for maintaining a nice balance for beginners and advanced users"
Nick Bower, Curtin University of Technology

"On behalf of Research Systems Incorporated and the community of IDL users and programmers, I would like to thank Liam Gumley for writing this valuable and long overdue book. Practical IDL Programming serves as a useful tutorial, source of examples, and reference for those wishing to learn or master IDL. It fives me great pleasure to recommend this book to you."
From the Foreword by David Stern, Founder, Research Systems Incorporated

Increasingly, scientists and engineers must quickly and efficiently analyze and visualize extremely large sets of data. Interactive Data Language, IDL, was designed to address just this need. A popular data analysis and visualization programming environment, IDL is used worldwide by scientists and engineers in fields as diverse as the physical sciences, medical physics, and engineering test and analysis.

In Practical IDL Programming, Liam E. Gumley provides a solid foundation in the fundamentals of procedural programming in IDL. He presents concise information on how to develop IDL programmers that are well structured, reliable, and efficient. The example programs in the book demonstrate key concepts and provide functionality that can be applied immediately. In addition, the book offers readers practical tips and advice on IDL programming, which they would otherwise discover only after years of experience.

While only modest prior programming experience is assumed, readers with experience in any procedural language will quickly translate their skills to IDL, learning the best programming practices for this new environment. Scientists, engineers, and students in educational, government, and commercial research and development environments will all appreciate the author's guidance in helping them effectively analyze and visualize data.

Features:

• Presents a comprehensive and detailed treatment of IDL data types, operators, expressions, array operations, input and output, direct graphics, plotting and imaging, publication quality output, and graphical user interfaces.
• Designed for novices and experienced IDL users and programmers alike.
• Provides an accompanying Web site with downloadable versions of all IDL programs in the book and a link to downloadable demonstration versions of the IDL software.

Author Biography:Liam E. Gumley is a researcher at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has developed his expertise in IDL by analyzing and visualizing large earth science datasets acquired by NASA earth-orbiting satellites and aircraft. He has also developed high-end application programs in IDL, including an application for visualizing data from a NASA airborne imaging sensor. He is a frequent contributor to the IDL Usenet newsgroup.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2901558607001
Publication date:	07/18/2001
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Liam E. Gumley is a researcher at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has developed his expertise in IDL by analyzing and visualizing large earth science datasets acquired by NASA earth-orbiting satellites and aircraft. He has also developed high-end application programs in IDL, including an application for visualizing data from a NASA airborne imaging sensor. He si a frequent contributor to the IDL Usenet newsgroup.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	v
	Acknowledgments	ix
Chapter 1	Introduction	1
1.1	About This Book	2
1.2	About IDL	5
1.3	Running IDL	7
1.4	Online Help	9
1.5	Outline of the Chapters	11
Chapter 2	Fundamentals of IDL Syntax	15
2.1	Interactive and Compiled Modes	15
2.2	Variables	17
2.3	Introduction to Arrays	24
2.4	Array Indexing	29
2.5	Expressions and Arithmetic Operators	34
2.6	Relational and Boolean Operators	44
2.7	Structures	52
2.8	Pointers	58
2.9	Array Properties	67
2.10	Locating Values within an Array	72
2.11	Array Reordering	75
2.12	Array Resizing	81
Chapter 3	Writing IDL Programs	89
3.1	Defining and Compiling Programs	89
3.2	Control Statements	97
3.3	Parameters and Keywords	110
3.4	Checking Parameters and Keywords	118
3.5	Scripts, Include Files, and Journaling	122
3.6	Global Variables	125
3.7	Error Handling	130
3.8	Efficient Programming	135
Chapter 4	Input and Output	139
4.1	Standard Input and Output	140
4.2	Working with Files	147
4.3	Reading and Writing Formatted (ASCII) Files	151
4.4	Reading and Writing Unformatted (Binary) Files	157
4.5	Scientific and Specialized Data Formats	171
4.6	Reading and Writing netCDF Files	172
4.7	Reading and Writing HDF Files	182
Chapter 5	Direct Graphics	193
5.1	Graphics Devices	193
5.2	Display Modes	197
5.3	Graphics Windows	205
5.4	Working with Colors	210
5.5	Display Mode Troubleshooting	218
Chapter 6	Plotting Data	225
6.1	Plotting Overview	226
6.2	Plot Positioning	235
6.3	Plot Customization	241
6.4	Plot Colors	248
6.5	Titles, Labels, and Symbols	252
6.6	Error Bar, Histogram, and Bar Plots	257
6.7	Contour Plots	263
6.8	Mesh and Shaded Surface Plots	270
6.9	Mapping	281
Chapter 7	Displaying Images	301
7.1	Image Fundamentals	302
7.2	Image Display Routines	304
7.3	Customizing Image Scaling	308
7.4	Sizing the Image to Fit the Display	318
7.5	Displaying TrueColor Images	323
7.6	Displaying Images on the PostScript and Printer Devices	326
7.7	An Image Display Procedure	332
Chapter 8	Creating Graphical Output	341
8.1	Bitmap and Vector Output	341
8.2	Creating Bitmap Output Files	343
8.3	Creating PostScript Output	355
8.4	Creating Printer Output	378
Chapter 9	Graphical User Interfaces	391
9.1	Introduction to GUI Programming	391
9.2	Creating Widgets	398
9.3	Working with Existing Widgets	425
9.4	Events and Event Handling	426
9.5	A GUI Application	440
Appendix A	IDL on the Internet	461
A.1	Resources by the Author	461
A.2	RSI Information	461
A.3	Newsgroup	462
A.4	Libraries	462
A.5	Searchable Library Database	462
A.6	Editors	463
A.7	PostScript Viewers	463
A.8	People	463
Appendix B	Mathematical Routines	465
Appendix C	Widget Event Structures	475
Appendix D	Widget Properties	483
Appendix E	Graphics Device Properties	487
	Index	489

Editorial Reviews

This guide to Interactive Data Language (IDL) explains the basics of procedural programming, emphasizing issues of structure, reliability, and efficiency. It describes IDL data types, operators, expressors, array operations, input and output, direct graphics, plotting and imaging, publication quality output, and graphical user interfaces. Example programs demonstrate key concepts. Some prior programming experience is assumed. Gumley is a researcher at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"Precisely the book I wished to have available when I first learned IDL" —Martin Schultz, Max Planck Institut fuer Meteorologie

"A well presented explanation of the practical application of IDL" —Paul van Delst, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"A fantastic achievement for maintaining a nice balance for beginners and advanced users" —Nick Bower, Curtin University of Technology

On behalf of Research Systems Incorporated and the community of IDL users and programmers, I would like to thank Liam Gumley for writing this valuable and long overdue book. Practical IDL Programming serves as a useful tutorial, source of examples, and reference for those wishing to learn or master IDL. It gives me great pleasure to recommend this book to you." —From the Forward by David Stern, Founder, Research Systems Incorporated

From the Publisher