NAME
pscoast - To plot land-masses, water-masses, coastlines, borders, and
rivers
SYNOPSIS
pscoast -Jparameters -Rwest/east/south/north[r] [
-Amin_area[min_level//max_level] ] [ -Btickinfo ] [ -Cfill ] [
-Dresolution ] [ -Eazimuth/elevation ] [ -Gfill ] [ -Iriver[/pen] ] [
-K ] [ -L[f][x]lon0/lat0/slat/length[m|n] ] [ -M[flag] ] [
-Nborder[/pen] ] [ -O ] [ -P ] [ -Q ] [ -Sfill ] [ -U[/dx/dy/][label] ]
[ -V ] [ -Wpen ] [ -Xx-shift ] [ -Yy-shift ] [ -ccopies ]
DESCRIPTION
pscoast plots grayshaded, colored, or textured land-masses [or water-
masses] on maps and [optionally] draws coastlines, 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 transparent. The PostScript
code is written to standard output.
No space between the option flag and the associated arguments.
Use upper case for the option flags and lower case for modifiers.
-J Selects the map projection. Scale is inch/degree, 1:xxxxx, or
width in inch (upper case modifier).
CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS:
-Jclon0/lat0/scale (Cassini)
-Jjlon0/scale (Miller)
-Jmscale (Mercator - Greenwich and Equator as origin)
-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)
-Joclon0/lat0/lonp/latp/scale (Oblique Mercator - point and pole)
-Jqlon0/scale (Equidistant Cylindrical Projection (Plate Carree))
-Jtlon0/scale (TM - Transverse Mercator)
-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/scale (General Stereographic)
CONIC PROJECTIONS:
-Jblon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Albers)
-Jllon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Lambert)
MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTIONS:
-Jhlon0/scale (Hammer)
-Jilon0/scale (Sinusoidal)
-Jklon0/scale (Eckert VI)
-Jnlon0/scale (Robinson)
-Jrlon0/scale (Winkel Tripel)
-Jwlon0/scale (Mollweide)
NON-GEOGRAPHICAL PROJECTIONS:
-Jpscale (Linear projection for polar (theta,r) coordinates)
-Jxx-scale[l|ppow][/y-scale[l|ppow]] (Linear, log, and power
scaling)
More details can be found in the psbasemap manpages.
-R west, east, south, and north specify the Region of interest. To
specify boundaries in degrees and minutes [and seconds], use the
dd:mm[:ss] format. Append r if lower left and upper right map
coordinates 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 plotted [Default is 0/4 (all features)].
See DATABASE INFORMATION below for more details.
-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. Specify 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 resolution of the image. For
1-bit rasters: use -GP for inverse video, or append
:Fr/g/b[B[r/g/b]] to specify fore- and background colors. See
GMT Cookbook & Technical Reference Appendix E for information on
individual patterns.
-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].
-L Draws a simple map scale centered on lon0/lat0. Use -Lx to
specify position in inch instead. Scale is calculated 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 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 specify where the
lower left corner of the stamp should fall on the page relative
to lower left corner of plot in inch [Default is (-0.75i/-
0.75i)]. Optionally, append a label, or c (which will plot the
command string.)
-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) inch [Default is
(a1i,a1i) for new plots, (0,0) for overlays]. Prepend a for
absolute coordinates; the default (r) will reset plot origin.
-c Specifies the number of plot copies. [Default is 1]
EXAMPLES
To plot a green Africa with white outline on blue background, 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), unit size 0.5 inch, on
a Mercator map at scale 0.4 inch/degree, try
pscoast -R-30/-10/60/65 -Jm0.4i -B5 -Gp0.5/28 > 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 determined 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 Douglas-Peucker line-simplification
algorithm. The classification of rivers and borders follow that of
the WDBII. See the GMT Cookbook and Technical Reference Appendix K
for further details.
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 clipping.
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 delimiting 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, gmt, grdlandmask, psbasemap
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