iTool Enhancements
The IDL Intelligent Tools (iTools) are a set of interactive utilities that combine data analysis and visualization with the task of producing presentation quality graphics....
For details on these additions and other enhancements that have been made to the IDL iTools system for the 7.1 release, see the following topic:
IOPEN Routine for Automatic Data Import
The IOPEN routine allows you to specify a file to be opened and its contents automatically read into IDL variables.
See "IOPEN" (IDL Reference Guide) for additional details.
Programmatic iTool Interface
Many iTool interactions that relied on mouse action by the user can now be accomplished programmatically. In addition to being able to create iTools (via the existing IPLOT, IIMAGE, and similar routines), you can now programmatically modify existing iTools. New routines allow you to:
- set and retrieve properties of iTool visualizations (ISETPROPERTY, IGETPROPERTY)
- set and retrieve data used to create an iTool visualization (IPUTDATA, IGETDATA)
- create annotations in an existing tool (IELLIPSE, IPOLYGON, IPOLYLINE, ITEXT)
- manipulate visualizations and annotations in an existing tool (IROTATE, ITRANSLATE, ISCALE, IZOOM)
See Using the iTools Procedural Interface in the IDL Online Help for additional details.
Enhancements to the iTool Save/Export Process
The process of saving or exporting the contents of an iTool has been streamlined:
- To save the entire iTool window to a file, select File → Save in the iTool. Selecting an image file format (
.gif,.jpg, etc.) will save the entire contents of the iTool window as an image. Selecting the iTool Save File format (.isv) will save the iTool as a restorable IDL save file. - To save a bitmap version of a single image contained in an iTool window, select the image and select Edit → Export Image...
- To export data variables used to create the iTool visualization back to IDL, select the visualization and select Edit → Export Data to IDL...
Note
To change the output options for a particular image file format, select File → Preferences..., then select the image file format from the File Writers folder and change the output properties as desired.
Switch to IDL Command Line from an iTool
When an iTool window has the focus, you can press Ctrl-I or select Window → Show IDL Command Line to bring the IDL Workbench to the foreground and put the focus in the IDL Command Line view.
IIMAGE and IMAP Accept a Filename Argument
IIMAGE and IMAP now accept a Filename argument. Calling these iTools with Filename is equivalent to calling IOPEN and passing the resulting data into the iTool as the first argument.
