Charts

5.8 Charts

Overview

A number of the display controls make use of a charting facility. The charts have a common set of properties and facilities. Each of these display controls will show a thumbnail image of their charts in the legend. This can be toggled using the menu.

There are three levels of configuration available to the user.

5.8.0 Chart Line Properties

At the lowest level you can set the properties of how each parameter or field is shown. This is done through the Chart Line properties dialog which is brought up typically through the View->Chart menu or by right clicking on the fields table.

This properties dialog allows you to set the visibility of the line () as well as the whether the axis label is shown. You can also specify a different by selecting one from the pull-down list or typing one into the field. This is how you create new charts. The display will automatically create a new chart with the given name. You can also specify what side of the chart the axis is shown. The fields allow you to fix the axis range. That way as the chart values change the axis range is maintained constant. There are a number of settings for the actual display of the line. It can be a line, area, shape, etc. You can also set the line stroke, width and color. The menu allows you to define where in the chart special shapes are shown (e.g., wind barbs, cloud coverage, text).

5.8.1 Chart Properties

For each chart there are a number of settings that can be changed through the Chart Properties dialog. This is also accessed through the menu or by right clicking on the chart.

You can change the name of the chart and set its background color and domain/range line properties. When right clicking on a chart you can also zoom in and out and write the chart as an image. There are also a number of key and mouse bindings on the chart:

Control-R: Reset any zooming.
Up/Down/Left/Right Arrows: Pan p
Left mouse drag - zoom

5.8.2 Chart Layout

When you have multiple charts you can define different layouts for them using the menu. There are a number of pre-defined layouts: Vertical, Horizontal, 2 Column, 3 Column, Tabs. The Grid Layout allows for much flexibility in how the charts are organized and laid out. The menu brings up the Grid Layout Editor:

The idea here is the overall window is divided up into a number of rows and columns. You can add/remove rows and columns with the "+" and "-" buttons. You can then drag the little graphical representations of the charts to place them in the grid. A chart can also span multiple rows or columns. Just grab the little black square on one side of the chart image and drag it to change the row or column.

Unidata's Integrated Data Viewer > Display Controls