IDT(1NCARG)

📦 version 6.6.2, in epel 9, fedora 43, fedora 44

💖 IDT(1NCARG) — the X window interactive image display tool 💖

Welcome to the IDT(1NCARG) page, brought to you by NCAR GRAPHICS. This is part 1, bestie, so buckle up. ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

idt — X window interactive image display tool. That's the whole vibe. 🦋

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

idt [ -toolkitoption ...  ] [ -background color ] [ -f font ] [
       -foreground color ] [ -history ] [ -lmin min ] [ -lmax max ] [ -lscale
       scale ] [ -oldidt ] [ -pal pal_fname ] [ -reverse ] [ -soft ] [ -Version
       ] [ metafile ]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Okay so idt is literally a graphical user interface to the NCAR View interactive metafile translator ictrans. No cap, it supports a subset of the ictrans command interface.

idt gives you two types of command panels for interacting with imagery. The first type is the control panel, which you see when you initially invoke idt. The control panel displays messages from the translators, provides a metafile selection utility, and is responsible for instantiating the second type of command panel, the display panel. The display panel provides mechanisms for controlling translators. Each display panel manages a single metafile translator. There can be multiple display panels in existence at the same time, but only one control panel. Periodt. 💅

👑 OPTIONS 👑

idt accepts all of the standard X Toolkit command line options (see X(1)). idt also accepts the following options:

  • -f fontcap — Fontcap file to be used for stroking text. When interpreting CGM TEXT command elements, use fontcap as the default font for textual translation.
Note: CGMs may contain textual descriptions which are not embedded in CGM TEXT elements. Hence they are not influenced by fontcap specifications. Note also that a CGM may explicitly specify a named font which may override a font provided on the command line. The environment variable FONTCAP may also be used to specify a default fontcap.

If fontcap is preceded by a UNIX directory path then ctrans will look in that directory for the specified fontcap. Otherwise idt searches the directory $NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/fontcaps for the fontcap.

See fontcap(5NCARG) for a description of the available fontcaps. See fcap(1NCARG) for a list of the fontcaps installed on your system.

This option overrides the FONTCAP environment variable.

  • -history — Write a record of all commands sent to the translator to the file ./.idthist.
  • -Version — Print the version number and then exit.

The following options are ignored by idt and are passed on to the metafile translator ictrans. See ictrans(1NCARG) for a description of their use.

  • -soft — passed on to ictrans.
  • -lmin linewidth — passed on to ictrans.
  • -lmax linewidth — passed on to ictrans.
  • -lscale linewidth — passed on to ictrans.
  • -pal pal_fname — passed on to ictrans.
  • -foreground color — passed on to ictrans.
  • -background color — passed on to ictrans.
  • -reverse — passed on to ictrans.

🌈 CONTROL PANEL COMMANDS 🌈

The control panel provides a text widget for displaying messages from the translators and a row of command buttons. Messages are preceded with the string "Display[X]", where "X" is an integer id associated with the translator sending the message. The first translator spawned is "Display[0]", the second is "Display[1]", etc.

  • select file — Selects a file for translation. This button brings up a popup menu containing a file selection box. The uppermost dialog box of the file selection box is used for specifying a filter for searching for files. For example, the filter "/usr/local/lib/*.cgm" finds all files in the directory /usr/local/lib whose names end with ".cgm". The finder understands standard shell metacharacters.

The bottom dialog box displays the currently selected file. The user may enter a file name here or select one with the mouse from the list of files displayed in the middle text widget.

  • display — Popup a display panel. A display panel is popped up ready for translation of the file most recently selected with the file selector. This command will fail if a file has not been selected.
  • quit — Quits the application and terminates all translators.

🦋 DISPLAY PANEL COMMANDS 🦋

The display panel provides a mechanism for manipulating the translator associated with a particular metafile. On most systems the name of the metafile appears in the title bar at the top of the panel. The first row in the panel contains a scroll bar for randomly selecting a frame to be translated. The label bar to the right displays the number of the frame scrolled to. The panel is intended to resemble a video tape editor. Thus, the second row contains play back, jog back, stop, jog and play buttons, respectively. The third and forth rows contain more complex display commands.

  • loop — Toggle the looping mode on or off. When loop is on, pressing the play (playback) button causes the translator to process all the frames in the segment sequentially (reverse sequentially) and then start over from the beginning (end). The process continues until the "stop" button is selected. By default loop mode is off.
  • dup — Sets duplication variable. If dup is set to 1 each frame is displayed once, if dup is set to 2 each frame is displayed twice, etc. The default value of dup is 1.
  • goto — Go to the specified frame and translate it. goto provides random access to the frames contained in the metafile.
  • skip — Set the skip variable. If skip is set to 1 every other frame is displayed during subsequent plays, if skip is set to 2 every third frame is displayed, etc. The default value for skip is 0.
  • delay — Set the between-frame animation delay-time. When idt is in animation mode you may request that idt pause for a period of time between the display of each image. The effect of setting a delay time is to govern the speed at which idt "plays" imagery.
  • start segment — Define the first frame in the segment. This button and the stop segment button define a segment which is a subset of the frames contained in the metafile. When in play (playback) mode only the frames contained within the defined segment are translated. The default value for start segment is 1, the first frame in the file.
  • stop segment — Define the last frame in the segment. The default frame is the last frame in the file. Hence, by default the segment is the entire metafile.
  • set window — Specify the workstation window (in the GKS sense). Four coordinates are specified which define a rectangular window which is a subset of normalized VDC rectangle with corner points (0,0) and (1.0,1.0). The specified window is then mapped onto the entire viewport. For example, if the workstation window is defined by the corner points (0,0) and (0.5 0.5) then the lower left quarter of a plot would be blown up to fill the largest rectangle which fits in the drawing window while retaining the aspect ratio described by the normalized coordinates. Specification of such a window can be used for zooming and panning.
  • done — Terminate processing of current metafile.
  • current frame — Update the "Scrolled to Frame ->" label box with the number of the current frame.
  • print — Send the current frame to the printer. The print command brings up a menu of all devices configured for accepting translator output. This list is created dynamically in response to changes in the spooler configuration file (see ncarv_spool(5NCARG)). Selecting an item from the menu causes the current frame to be sent to that device.
  • save — Save a frame to a file. This command allows you to write the metacode for the current frame to a file. The result is a complete NCAR Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) containing a single frame.
  • unzoom — Reset windowing transformations previously set by the zoom command back to their default.
  • zoom — Zoom in on an area of a plot. The function of this command is identical to that of the window command. The zoom command, however, allows you to select the area of interest interactively with the mouse.
  • animate — Toggle animation mode on or off. When idt is put into animation mode the currently defined segment is rasterized with the translator and loaded into the X server memory. Subsequent idt commands operate on the memory-resident images. Not all idt commands are available in animation mode. By default animation is off.

💜 RESOURCES 💜

As with all standard X applications, idt may be customized through entries in the resource manager. In the following list of application resources provided by idt the resource name is given followed by its class in parentheses. These resources supplement the resources provided by the widgets themselves.

  • history (Class History) — Specify whether a history of commands sent to the metafile translators is recorded to the file "./.idthist" or not. The default for this resource is "False".
  • fileSelectAction (Class FileSelectAction) — Set the default action to be executed after a file has been selected with the file selection box. Currently the only value this resource understands is "display".
  • messageHeight (Class MessageHeight) — Set the height in lines of text of the message display panel.
  • oldIdt (Class OldIdt) — Specifies the "-oldidt" option.
  • translatorDevice (Class TranslatorDevice) — Specify the output device for metafile translation. The default for this resource is "X11".
  • translatorFont (Class TranslatorFont) — Specify the name of the fontcap to use for stroking text during metafile translation. The default value for this resource is "font1".
  • translatorSoft (Class TranslatorSoft) — Specifies the ictrans "-soft" option.
  • translatorLmin (Class TranslatorLmin) — Specifies the ictrans "-lmin" option.
  • translatorLmax (Class TranslatorLmax) — Specifies the ictrans "-lmax" option.
  • translatorLscale (Class TranslatorLscale) — Specifies the ictrans "-lscale" option.
  • translatorForeground (Class TranslatorForeground) — Specifies the ictrans "-foreground" option.
  • translatorBackground (Class TranslatorBackground) — Specifies the ictrans "-background" option.
  • translatorReverse (Class TranslatorReverse) — Specifies the ictrans "-reverse" option.

✨ ACTIONS ✨

okay so idt hands you these actions to use in event translation, bestie 💖

  • FinderTranslation() — makes the file selector popup go search for files using the key you typed into the file finder text box 🔍
  • OkFinderTranslation() — tells the file selector that a choice has officially been made. it's giving "yes, this one, periodt" 💅
  • SelectFileTranslation() — refreshes the text box in the file selector that shows which file is currently selected ✨
  • OkSDTranslation() — confirms a selection you made in one of the display panel popup dialog boxes 🎀

🧚 WIDGETS 🧚

so if you wanna specify resources, you kinda need to know the hierarchy of the widgets that make up idt, right? 🫶 in the notation below, the indentation shows the hierarchal structure. the widget class name comes first, then the widget instance name. no cap.

Idt  idt
    Paned  paned
        Text  text
        Form  form
            Command  select file
            Command  display
                TopLevelShell  <???>
                    Paned  paned
                        Core  canvas   /* This is the drawing canvas
                        Form  form
                            Scrollbar  scrollbar
                            Label  Scrolled to Frame ->
                        Form  form
                            Command  playback
                            Command  jogback
                            Command  stop
                            Command  jog
                            Command  play
                        Form  form
                            Toggle  loop
                            Command  dup
                            Command  goto
                            Command  skip
                            Command  delay
                            Command  start segment
                            Command  stop segment
                            Command  set window
                        Form  form
                            Command  done
                            Command  current frame
                            MenuButton  print
                                SimpleMenu  menu
                                    SmeBSB  <???>
                                    SmeBSB  <???>
                                    SmeBSB  <???>
                                              |
                                              |
                                    dynamically configured
                                              |
                                              |
                                    SmeBSB  <???>
                                    SmeBSB  <???>
                            Command  save
                            Command  zoom
                            Command  unzoom
                            Toggle  animate
                        Grip  grip
                        Grip  grip
                        Grip  grip
                        Grip  grip
                        Grip  grip
            Command  quit
        Grip  grip
        Grip  grip

Paned

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

want the graphics display window to default to 200 by 200 pixels? drop this resource spec in, bestie:

          Idt*canvas.width:   200
     Idt*canvas.height:  200

and if you want the control panel chillin' in the top right corner, slide this into your .Xdefaults file 👑

          idt.geometry:        -0+0

🌸 ENVIRONMENT 🌸

  • DISPLAY — the standard X environment variable for specifying the display name. if your translation output device is X11, this one MUST be set. like, mandatory mandatory 🔥
  • FONTCAP — default fontcap specifier.
  • NCARG_ROOT — path to the root of your NCAR Graphics installation.
  • NCARG_LIB — if you set this, it holds the path to the installed NCAR Graphics libraries. heads up: NCARG_LIB overrides NCARG_ROOT 💅
  • NCARG_TMP — if set, this contains a directory path used for temporary files. on most systems the default is /tmp. on some systems the default is /usr/tmp.
  • SHELL — specifies the UNIX shell that the file selector uses for expanding metacharacters. /bin/sh is the default.
  • XENVIRONMENT — specifies the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

🍓 FILES 🍓

  • .idthist — Translator command history file
  • $NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/xapp/Idt — Default resource file for idt
  • $HOME/.ncarv_spool — User spooler configuration file
  • $NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/ncarv_spool — System spooler configuration file

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

ctrans(1NCARG), fcaps(1NCARG), gcaps(1NCARG), ictrans(1NCARG), ncarv_spool(5NCARG), X(1), xrdb(1)

Hardcopy: NCAR Graphics Fundamentals, UNIX Version

💀 BUGS 💀

Zooming in on large cell arrays causes the translator to crash. yeah. that's it. that's the whole bug. 😭

🙈 CAVEATS 🙈

listen, these are important, so read them fr fr:

  • The metafile file translation process is performed by spawning the ictrans translator. ictrans does not understand standard X Toolkit options. hence, the DISPLAY environment variable must be set when translating a metafile to be displayed in a window.
  • You can not save "zoomed" plots to a file. more precisely: you may save a "zoomed" plot, however, the resultant plot will not be "zoomed". it's giving false advertising ngl 💀
  • The "Scrolled to Frame" label is not continuously updated.
  • The range with which one may zoom in on a plot with either the zoom or window command is severely limited by Xlib's use of short integers for containing screen coordinate data. blame Xlib 🫠
  • IRIX 4.x users should not set use the shared memory connection to their X server. i.e. don't use the display shm:0.
  • Background color changes don't work when idt is in animate mode. idt will use whatever color was most recently set in the animation segment for the entire segment.

Copyright (C) 1987-2009 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

The use of this Software is governed by a License Agreement.

and that's a wrap on the whole page, bestie 🎀 this came from the NCARG fam, dated January 1993, and the page is IDT(1NCARG). go forth and translate those metafiles, you absolute icon 💖✨

📦 where this page comes from