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)
Man(1) output converted with
man2html