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[McIDAS #MGZ-769333]: PTDISP Letter size

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  • Subject: [McIDAS #MGZ-769333]: PTDISP Letter size
  • Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:38:11 -0600
Hi Kwan,

re:
> Since last time I contacted you, I have been importing scripts into the new
> environment, and McIDAS appears to be working very well thus far.

Very good.

re:
> For the last few days, I have been attempting to plot surface observations
> using PTDISP.   I would like the font for the PMSL to be sightly larger
> than the rest.  However, I could only get rough font size increments.  For
> example, if I assign LSIZE=6, then the next step up is when it gets up to
> LSIZE=9, which looks twice as tall as LSIZE=6.  If I try assigning LSIZE 7
> or 8, it would give the same size as LSIZE=6.  What I would like is a font
> size that is 1.5 times as tall as LSIZE=6.
> 
> I am sending you two images--one using LSIZE=6 and the other LSIZE=9.
> 
> The commands I used were
> FONT SET NEWMR
> PTDISP RTPTSRC/SFCHOURLY 1 PAR=T[C] TD[C] PSL[MB] GUS[KT] WXC1 MUL=X X 10 X X 
> LSI=6 6 9 6 13 COL=5 4 2 3 4 OFF=-5 -12 5 -12 -10 3 3 3 0 -18 FORMAT=I3 I3 K3 
> I3 WXCM SEL='DAY 15211 15211; HMS 13:45:00 14:14:00' LOC=o 3 4 LIN=1 MAX 
> ELE=1 MAX

Hmm... I think that the cause of the size jump is "quantization" of
the fonts.  Consider:

<as 'mcidas'>
cd ~mcidas
cat -alt data/NEWMR.FFD

-Adobe-New Century Schoolbook-Medium-R-Normal-
none                             1
none                             2
none                             3
none                             4
none                             5
ncenR08.bdf                      6
ncenR08.bdf                      7
ncenR08.bdf                      8
ncenR10.bdf                      9
ncenR10.bdf                      10
ncenR10.bdf                      11
ncenR12.bdf                      12
ncenR12.bdf                      13
ncenR14.bdf                      14
ncenR14.bdf                      15
ncenR14.bdf                      16
ncenR18.bdf                      17
ncenR18.bdf                      18
ncenR18.bdf                      19
ncenR18.bdf                      20
ncenR18.bdf                      21
ncenR24.bdf                      22
ncenR24.bdf                      23
ncenR24.bdf                      24

You can see that the actual size used for the McIDAS-specified sizes of
6-8 is 8, 9-11 is 10, 12-13 is 12, etc.

I would guess (and it is purely a guess) that there could be a non-jumpy
gradation is font sizes of the corresponding '.bdf' (Glyph Bitmap Distribution
Format) file was available and the corresponding FFD file "pointed" to the
correct file for each McIDAS-specified size.

McIDAS-X is distributed with a finite number of FFD and bdf files.  I guess
that SSEC did this for some good reason, but I don't know for sure.

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: MGZ-769333
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed