NAME¶

voaAreaPlot - Plot VOACAP Area Data Files

SYNOPSIS¶

voaAreaPlot [options] file_name

DESCRIPTION¶

voaAreaPlot A python script used to graphically display the contents of output files produced by VOACAP 'area' calculations. the 'file_name parameter defines the path to a .voa or .vgz file. If a .voa file is specified, the corresponding output files (e.g. '.vg1') must be located in the same directory.

OPTIONS¶

--version

Display the version number and exit.

-c, --contours

Plot contours on the map.

-d DATATYPE, --datatype=DATATYPE

An integer number representing the data type (MUF, REL or SNR) to plot. Valid values of DATATYPE are 1 (MUF), 2 (REL), 3 (SNR) 4 (SNRxx), 5 (SDBW) and 6 (SDBW - formatted as S-Meter values). Default value is 1 (MUF)

--filled-contour

Creates a filled contour plot.

-h, --help

Print a help message and exit.

-i, --meridian

Plot meridians (lines of constant latitude) on the map..

-k, --background

Specify the colour of the background. Any legal HTML color specification is supported e.g '-k red', '-k #eeefff', (default = white)

-l, --parallels (lines of constant longitude) on the map.

Plot parallels.

-m COLOURMAP, --cmap=COLOURMAP

COLOURMAP specifies the Colour map used by the plot. Valid values are; 'autumn', 'bone', 'cool','copper', 'gray', 'hot', 'hsv', 'jet', 'pink', 'spring', 'summer', 'winter'. Default value is 'jet'

-n POI_FILE, --interest=POI_FILE

POI_FILE is a text file with points of interest to plot on the map. The file is comma (,) delimited with a single point of interest on each line in the form "longitude, latitude, text_name". The file format is the same as Garmin's POI csv files. A sample file would look like;
36.599998, 28.366667, Tabuk
39.183334, 21.700001, Jeddah
42.799999, 18.299999, Khamis Mushait
40.549999, 21.483334, Taif
50.150002, 26.266666, Dahran

-p PROJECTION, --projection=PROJECTION

PROJECTION specifies the map projection. Valid values are 'cyl' (Equidistant Cylindrical), 'mill' (Miller Cylindrical), gall' (Gall Stereographic), 'robin' (Robinson), 'vandg' (van der Grinten), 'sinu' (Sinusoidal), 'mbtfpq' (McBryde-Thomas Flat Polar Quartic), 'eck4' (Eckert IV), 'kav7' (Kavrayskiy VII), 'moll' (Mollweide), 'hammer' (Hammer).

-r RESOLUTION, --resolution=RESOLUTION

A single character representing resolution of the final plot. RESOLUTION may be one of 'c' (crude), 'l' (low), 'i' (intermediate), 'h' (high), 'f' (full)

-t, --terminator

Displays the night/day regions on the map.

-v VG_FILES, --vg_files=VG_FILES

VG_FILES specifies which .vg files to plot, e.g. '-v 1,3,5,6' or use '-v a' to print all plots associated with the input file. Default is 1.

-z TIMEZONE, --timezone=TIMEZONE

Specify a timezone. This option adjusts the (UTC) time specified in the datafile to the users local time.

EXAMPLES¶

voaAreaPlot aDataFile.voa

Plots the contents of the file aDataFile.voa using default settings.

voaAreaPlot aZipArchive.vgz

Plots the contents of the .voa file found in the .vgz archive using the default settings.

voaAreaPlot -r i -p mill aDataFile.voa

Plots an intermediate resolution miller projection.

voaAreaPlot -m autumn -p ortho aDataFile.voa

Plots an orthographic projection using the colour map 'autumn'.

ENVIRONMENT¶

voaAreaPlot does not require or make use of any environmental variables. The program requires the matlibplot library and basemap toolkit to run.

BUGS¶

No major bugs are known. Please submit .voa and .vg* files when submitting bug reports.

AUTHOR¶

The application and and man page was written by James Watson (M0DNS / HZ1JW) <jimwatson at mac dot com>

ACKNOLEDGMENTS¶

I'm indebted to the authors of matplotlib and the basemap toolkit which make plotting complex data sets straight forward and fun :-) Also to Lowell and Alex for beta testing and support.