Choosing a Tool

The tools in the Tool Palette correspond to IDL iTools with similar names (iPlot, iMap, iSurface, etc.). Each tool has actions defined within it. To expand the Tool Palette to display the actions, click on the action toggle button () at the top right corner of the Tool Palette. Click on each tool to display its action.

Note
With the action hidden (just the tools showing), clicking a tool invokes the first action that contains no positional arguments. For example, a click on the Image tool displays a blank iImage window.

Actions run various IDL routines with different arguments and keywords relating to the tool. For example, the Plot tool has several system-defined actions. Each action gives you different options for creating a visualization.

When you drag appropriate data variables to a tool, IDL interprets the data and determines which action to use, and displays the data in the corresponding iTools window. If you drag inappropriate data to a tool, an error message will display in the Console view.

IDL uses the first action in the list of actions that is appropriate to the variables. For example, if you drag just one variable, the first action with one variable defined will be used.

To use a specific action, expand the actions and drag variables to the action and click the button.

You can also define new actions of your own. See Tool Palette Actions for more information.

Table 17-2: Visualize Perspective Tools

Tool

Description

Plot—Use this tool to visualize data in two-dimensional plot space. Drag one or more data variables on the tool, and data displays in an iPlot window.

Image—Use this tool to visualize image data. Accessing an image from File → Open Files opens the file immediately in an iImage window. The data also appears as a variable in the Visualization View. See Map (below) for map images.

Surface—Use this tool to visualize data in three-dimensional plot space. Drag one or more data variables on the tool, and data displays in an iSurface window.

Contour—Use this tool to visualize contour data. Drag one or more data variables on the tool, and data displays in an iContour window.

Map—Use this tool to visualize map data. Drag one or more data variables on the tool, and data displays in an iMap window. Map images can also be viewed with the Image tool.

Vector—Use this tool to visualize vector data. Drag one or more data variables on the tool, and data displays in an iVector window.

Volume—Use this tool to visualize volume data. Drag one or more data variables on the tool, and data displays in an iVolume window.