Contour Tool Overview
The Contour Tool is used to display one 2D variable containing contour data. The Contour Tool also lets you display an image of your data underneath the contour plot.
note | Avoid using the PV-WAVE DEVICE command at the WAVE> command line when VDA Tools are running. |
Contour Tool Features
The Contour Tool offers several options for enhancing the appearance of contour plots including:
annotatingadding graphical objectsadding color between contour lineschanging the interval between adjacent contour lineschoosing the smoothing method usedchoosing which layer of 24-bit data to display displaying an image underneath a contour plot Using Online Help
The online Help system for this VDA Tool contains:
Reference material on the menus, button bar, and controls area of the Contour Tool window. To access this information, click on the links in the Contour Tool Contents topic.Task-oriented information. To access this information, click on the How To link in the Contour Tool Contents topic.A glossary of terms. To access the glossary, click on the Glossary link in the Contour Tool Contents topic.Context-sensitive reference material on dialog boxes. To access this information, click the Help button in any dialog box. note | Don’t forget to check the message area at the bottom of the Contour Tool window. The message area displays helpful information about whatever task you are performing. |
Contour Tool Controls Area
Auto Redraw—Automatically redraws the contour plot in response to changes made to the Fill Contours, Method Style, Spline, or Display Image controls. (Default: Selected.)
Fill Contours—Controls whether color other than the background color is used to fill the areas between contour lines. When Fill Contours is selected, the intervals between the contour lines are filled with the contour line colors.
Cell—The cell-drawing method, used by default, examines each array cell and draws all contours emanating from that cell before proceeding to the next cell. This method is efficient in terms of computer resources but does not allow contour labeling.
Follow—The line-following method searches for each contour line and then follows the line until it reaches a boundary or closes. This method gives better looking results with dashed linestyles, and allows contour labeling, but requires more computer time.
Spline—Allows you to spline the contour lines. This function can be used when either the Follow method of contour drawing, or Fill Contours is selected.
Display Image—Select this option to display an image of the data under the contour plot.
Layer to Plot—This feature lets you choose which color plane (e.g., red, green, or blue) of a 24-bit image to represent as a contour plot.
