[McIDAS #HUS-936607]: how to chose a combinations of params for sfcplot

Hi George,

Many, many apologies for letting your last inquiry languish for so long!
We are right in the middle of moving from one building to another, and
we have all been packing our offices for the past N days.  My office
is particularly difficult since I have been in it for 20+ years, and
have been accumulating "historic" Unidata stuff for the entire time
(read, I'm a pack rat :-).

re:
> Thanks Tom for your help.

No worries.

re:
> I followed your instruction to create my own complex parameters.

Very good.

re:
> There is another question:
> when you define MYPLOT.PMSL, you also defined the colors for each parameter,
> but when I use the following script,
> ...
> sfcplot.k STNPLOT X $time $day DATASET=RTPTSRC/SFCHOURLY UNIT=M
> ...
> I only got a unique color for all parameters.
> 
> What should I do to get different color for each parameter?

The problem lies in a mod I made for Unidata McIDAS -- auto color selection
(which allows one to not have to specify the plot/contour color for
things like SFCPLOT/SFCCON on successive invocations) caused the station
model plot to use a single color instead of the multiple colors it is
instructed to use.  If this is a significant problem for you, I will have
to revisit the auto color selection code to figure out how to turn it off
when a user produces "compound" plots (like putting up a station model PLOT).

Just so you know, my reasoning on selecting a single color was entirely
driven by the desire to have the system choose the plot/contour color for
new fields.  McIDAS labels its plots using locations below the plot/contour
area that are determined by the color number used for the plot.  The auto
color select not only changes the color for the user, it changes the location
for the label for that plot.

Example, try running two surface plotting commands in sequence:

ERASE
SFCPLOT T USA
SFCCON T OLAY

The first invocation (SFCPLOT) will plot temperatures in color #3 (which
is yellow in the default graphics table).  The second invocation (SFCCON)
will recognize that color #3 has already been used, so it will choose
color #2 (which is cyan in the default graphics table).  The result will
be an easy to interpret display with labels that are readable.  The default
behavior in the version of McIDAS from SSEC is to use the color set in
the definition file for the routine being run (e.g., SFCPLOT.[CORE|SITE|USER),
etc.).  This forces the user running the command to add the COLor= keyword
to change the plot color.  Make sense?

re:
> Thanks again for your help.

No worries.  Again, I apologize for the extreme tardiness of this reply!

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: HUS-936607
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: High
Status: Closed