pscoast



       pscoast  -  To plot land-masses, water-masses, coastlines,
       borders, and rivers


SYNOPSIS

       pscoast    -Jparameters    -Rwest/east/south/north[r]    [
       -Amin_area[min_level  [ -Eazimuth/elevation ] [ -Gfill ] [
       -Iriver[/pen]       ]        [        -K        ]        [
       -L[f][x]lon0/lat0/slat/length[m|n|k]  ]  [  -M[flag]  ]  [
       -Nborder[/pen] ] [ -O ] [ -P  ]  [  -Q  ]  [  -Sfill  ]  [
       -U[/dx/dy/][label] ] [ -V ] [ -Wpen ] [ -Xx-shift ] [ -Yy-
       shift ] [ -ccopies ] [ -bo[s] ]


DESCRIPTION

       pscoast plots grayshaded, colored, or textured land-masses
       [or  water-masses]  on  maps and [optionally] draws coast­
       lines, rivers, and political boundaries. Alternatively, it
       can (1) issue clip paths that will contain all land or all
       water areas, or (2) dump the data to an ASCII  table.  The
       datafiles come in 5 different resolutions: (f)ull, (h)igh,
       (i)ntermediate, (l)ow, and (c)rude.  The  full  resolution
       files  amount to more than 55 Mb of data and provide great
       detail; for maps of larger geographical extent it is  more
       economical  to  use  one  of the other resolutions. If the
       user selects to paint the land-areas and does not  specify
       fill  of  water-areas  then the latter will be transparent
       (i.e., earlier graphics drawn in those areas will  not  be
       overwritten). Likewise, if the water-areas are painted and
       no land fill is set then the land-areas will be  transpar­
       ent. The PostScript code is written to standard output.
               No  space  between the option flag and the associ­
       ated arguments. Use upper case for the  option  flags  and
       lower case for modifiers.

       -J     Selects  the  map projection. Scale is UNIT/degree,
              1:xxxxx, or width in UNIT  (upper  case  modifier).
              UNIT  is  cm,  inch,  or  m,  depending on the MEA­
              SURE_UNIT setting in .gmtdefaults, but this can  be
              overridden  on the command line by appending the c,
              i, or m to the scale/width value.

              CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS:

              -Jclon0/lat0/scale (Cassini)
              -Jjlon0/scale (Miller)
              -Jmscale (Mercator - Greenwich and Equator as  ori­
              gin)
              -Jmlon0/lat0/scale  (Mercator  -  Give meridian and
              standard parallel)
              -Joalon0/lat0/azimuth/scale  (Oblique  Mercator   -
              point and azimuth)
              -Joblon0/lat0/lon1/lat1/scale  (Oblique  Mercator -
              two points)
              -Jqlon0/scale  (Equidistant  Cylindrical Projection
              (Plate Carree))
              -Jtlon0/scale (TM - Transverse Mercator, with Equa­
              tor as y = 0)
              -Jtlon0/lat0/scale  (TM  - Transverse Mercator, set
              origin)
              -Juzone/scale (UTM - Universal Transverse Mercator)
              -Jylon0/lats/scale (Basic Cylindrical Projection)

              AZIMUTHAL PROJECTIONS:

              -Jalon0/lat0/scale (Lambert).
              -Jelon0/lat0/scale (Equidistant).
              -Jflon0/lat0/horizon/scale (Gnomonic).
              -Jglon0/lat0/scale (Orthographic).
              -Jslon0/lat0/[slat/]scale (General Stereographic)

              CONIC PROJECTIONS:

              -Jblon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Albers)
              -Jdlon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Equidistant)
              -Jllon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Lambert)

              MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTIONS:

              -Jhlon0/scale (Hammer)
              -Jilon0/scale (Sinusoidal)
              -Jk[f|s]lon0/scale (Eckert IV (f) and VI (s))
              -Jnlon0/scale (Robinson)
              -Jrlon0/scale (Winkel Tripel)
              -Jvlon0/scale (Van der Grinten)
              -Jwlon0/scale (Mollweide)

              NON-GEOGRAPHICAL PROJECTIONS:

              -Jp[a]scale[/origin]  (polar (theta,r) coordinates,
              optional a for azimuths and offset theta [0])
              -Jxx-scale[l|ppow][/y-scale[l|ppow]] (Linear,  log,
              and power scaling)
              More  details  can  be  found in the psbasemap man­
              pages.

       -R     west, east, south, and north specify the Region  of
              interest. To specify boundaries in degrees and min­
              utes [and  seconds],  use  the  dd:mm[:ss]  format.
              Append  r if lower left and upper right map coordi­
              nates are given instead of wesn.


OPTIONS

       -A     Features with an area smaller than min_area in km^2
              or   of  hierarchical  level  that  is  lower  than
              min_level or higher  than  max_level  will  not  be

       -B     Sets map boundary tickmark intervals. See psbasemap
              for details.

       -C     Set  the  shade  (0-255), color (r/g/b), or pattern
              (p|Pdpi/pattern; see -G) for lakes [Default is  the
              fill chosen for "wet" areas (-S)].

       -D     Selects  the  resolution  of  the  data  set to use
              ((f)ull,   (h)igh,   (i)ntermediate,   (l)ow,   and
              (c)rude).  The  resolution drops off by 80% between
              data sets. [Default is l].

       -E     Sets the viewpoint's  azimuth  and  elevation  (for
              perspective view) [180/90]'

       -G     Select  painting or clipping of "dry" areas. Append
              a shade, color, pattern, or c for clipping.   Spec­
              ify   the   shade  (0-255)  or  color  (r/g/b),  or
              -Gpdpi/pattern, where pattern gives the  number  of
              the  built-in  pattern  (1-90) OR the name of a Sun
              1-, 8-, or 24-bit raster file.  dpi sets the  reso­
              lution of the image. For 1-bit rasters: use -GP for
              inverse video, or append :Fr/g/b[B[r/g/b]] to spec­
              ify  fore- and background colors (use r/g/b = - for
              transparency).  See GMT Cookbook & Technical Refer­
              ence  Appendix E for information on individual pat­
              terns.

       -I     Draw  rivers.  Specify  the  type  of  rivers   and
              [optionally]  append  pen  attributes [Default pen:
              width = 1, color = 0/0/0, texture = solid].  Choose
              from  the list of river types below.  Repeat option
              -I as often as necessary.
                       1 = Permanent major rivers
                       2 = Additional major rivers
                       3 = Additional rivers
                       4 = Minor rivers
                       5 = Intermittent rivers - major
                       6 = Intermittent rivers - additional
                       7 = Intermittent rivers - minor
                       8 = Major canals
                       9 = Minor canals
                      10 = Irrigation canals
                       a = All rivers and canals (1-10)
                       r = All permanent rivers (1-4)
                       i = All intermittent rivers (5-7)
                       c = All canals (8-10)

       -K     More  PostScript  code  will  be   appended   later
              [Default terminates the plot system].

              culated at latitude slat, length is in km [miles if
              m is appended; nautical miles if  n  is  appended].
              Use  -Lf to get a "fancy" scale [Default is plain].

       -M     Dumps a single multisegment ASCII (or  binary,  see
              -bo)  file  to standard output. No plotting occurs.
              Specify any combination of -W, -I, -N.  Optionally,
              you  may  append the flag character that is written
              at the start of each segment header ['>'].

       -N     Draw political  boundaries.  Specify  the  type  of
              boundary  and  [optionally]  append  pen attributes
              [Default pen: width = 1, color = 0/0/0,  texture  =
              solid].  Choose  from the list of boundaries below.
              Repeat option -N as often as necessary.
                      1 = National boundaries
                      2 = State boundaries within the Americas
                      3 = Marine boundaries
                      a = All boundaries (1-3)

       -O     Selects Overlay plot mode  [Default  initializes  a
              new plot system].

       -P     Selects  Portrait  plotting  mode  [GMT  Default is
              Landscape, see gmtdefaults to change this].

       -Q     Mark end  of  existing  clip  path.  No  projection
              information is needed.

       -S     Select  painting or clipping of "wet" areas. Append
              the shade (0-255), color (r/g/b), pattern (see -G),
              or c for clipping.

       -U     Draw Unix System time stamp on plot. User may spec­
              ify where the lower left corner of the stamp should
              fall  on  the page relative to lower left corner of
              plot. Optionally, append a label, or c (which  will
              plot  the  command  string.).  The  GMT  parameters
              UNIX_TIME and UNIX_TIME_POS can affect the  appear­
              ance; see the gmtdefaults man page for details.

       -V     Selects  verbose  mode,  which  will  send progress
              reports to stderr [Default runs "silently"].

       -W     Draw coastlines. [Default is no coastlines]. Append
              pen attributes [Defaults: width = 1, color = 0/0/0,
              texture = solid].

       -X -Y  Shift origin of plot by (x-shift,y-shift).  Prepend
              a  for  absolute  coordinates; the default (r) will
              reset plot origin.

              sion [Default is double].


EXAMPLES

       To plot a green Africa with white outline  on  blue  back­
       ground,  with  permanent  major  rivers in thick blue pen,
       additional major rivers in thin  blue  pen,  and  national
       borders  as  dashed  lines  on a Mercator map at scale 0.1
       inch/degree, try

       pscoast   -R-30/30/-40/40   -Jm0.1i   -B5   -I1/1p/0/0/255
       -I2/0.25p/0/0/255      -N1/0.25tap     -W0.25p/255/255/255
       -G0/255/0 -S0/0/255 -P > africa.ps

       To plot Iceland using the lava pattern (# 28) at 100  dots
       per inch, on a Mercator map at scale 1 cm/degree, try

       pscoast -R-30/-10/60/65 -Jm1c -B5 -Gp100/28 > iceland.ps

       To  initiate a clip path for Africa so that the subsequent
       colorimage of gridded topography is only seen  over  land,
       using a Mercator map at scale 0.1 inch/degree, try

       pscoast -R-30/30/-40/40 -Jm0.1i -B5 -Gc -P -K > africa.ps
       grdimage   -Jm0.1i   etopo5.grd   -Ccolors.cpt  -O  -K  >>
       africa.ps
       pscoast -Q -O >> africa.ps


DATABASE INFORMATION

       The coastline database is compiled from two sources: World
       Vector  Shorelines  (WVS)  and  CIA  World  Data  Bank  II
       (WDBII).  In particular, all level-1 polygons  (ocean-land
       boundary) are derived from the more accurate WVS while all
       higher level polygons (level 2-4, representing  land/lake,
       lake/island-in-lake, and island-in-lake/lake-in-island-in-
       lake boundaries) are taken from WDBII. Much processing has
       taken place to convert WVS and WDBII data into usable form
       for GMT: assembling closed polygons  from  line  segments,
       checking  for  duplicates,  and  correcting  for crossings
       between polygons. The area of each polygon has been deter­
       mined  so  that  the  user may choose not to draw features
       smaller than a minimum area (see -A); one may  also  limit
       the  highest hierarchical level of polygons to be included
       (4 is the maximum). The 4 lower-resolution databases  were
       derived  from  the full resolution database using the Dou­
       glas-Peucker line-simplification algorithm. The  classifi­
       cation of rivers and borders follow that of the WDBII. See
       the GMT Cookbook and Technical Reference  Appendix  K  for
       further details.
       pscoast  will  first look for coastline files in directory
       $GMTHOME/share (where $GMTHOME is an  environmental  vari­
       able).  If the desired file is not found, it will look for
       the file coastline.conf in the same directory.  This  file
       and  blank  lines  are  allowed.  The desired file is then
       sought for in the alternate directories.


BUGS

       The options to fill (-C -G -S) may not always work if  the
       Azimuthal equidistant projection is chosen (-Je|E). If the
       antipole of the projection is in the oceans it  will  most
       likely work.  If not, try to avoid using projection center
       coordinates that are even multiples of the  coastline  bin
       size  (1,  2,  5,  10,  and  20 degrees for f, h, i, l, c,
       respectively). This projection is not supported for  clip­
       ping.
       The  political borders are for the most part 1970ies-style
       and do not reflect  the  recent  border  rearrangments  in
       Europe.  We intend to update these as high-resolution data
       become avaiable to us.
       Some users of pscoast will not be satisfied with what they
       find  for  the  Antarctic  shoreline.  In  Antarctica, the
       boundary between  ice  and  ocean  varies  seasonally  and
       interannually.  There are some areas of permanent sea ice.
       In addition to these  time-varying  ice-ocean  boundaries,
       there  are  also  ice  grounding lines where ice goes from
       floating on the sea to sitting on land, and lines delimit­
       ing areas of rock outcrop. For consistency's sake, we have
       used the World' Vector Shoreline throughout the  world  in
       pscoast,  as  described  in  the  GMT cookbook Appendix K.
       Users who need specific boundaries  in  Antarctica  should
       get  the  Antarctic  Digital  Database,  prepared  by  the
       British Antarctic Survey, Scott Polar Research  Institute,
       World  Conservation  Monitoring Centre, under the auspices
       of the Scientific Committee on  Antarctic  Research.  This
       data  base  contains  various  kinds of limiting lines for
       Antarctica and is available on CD-ROM. It is published  by
       the  Scientific  Committee  on  Antarctic  Research, Scott
       Polar Research Institute, Lensfield  Road,  Cambridge  CB2
       1ER, United Kingdom.


SEE ALSO

       gmtdefaults(l), gmt(l), grdlandmask(l), psbasemap(l)














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