Re: IDL/Wave alternatives

[Jarle Brinchmann <jarle(at)astro.ox.ac.uk>]

hcp@newsread.ed.ac.uk (H C Pumphrey) writes:
> |> Re: Graphics
> |> - A package to do geographical maps was just created for PDL.
> 
> Ooooh, I'm glad to stand corrected here! Is that going to be distributed
> with PDL iteself or does it come from elsewhere?
 
It is on CPAN, but looking at it again it is somewhat limited, here is
Doug Hunt's announcement:

   > Oliver, Jim:  I have just uploaded to CPAN the module
   > PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT::Map (painful name, I know) which is a
   > self-contained PDL interface to the GMT coastline/river/boundary
   > database.
  
   > The function 'fetch' will give you PDLs with lon/lats.  This does not
   > require PGPLOT.  Other functions draw world maps with labeled lon/lat
   > lines using PGPLOT and (currently) either a Linear of Azimuthal
   > Equidistant projection.  New projections should be easy to add.

There has also been done some work on fully 3D projections using
OpenGL in PDL which is complementary. 


> .. Which brings me to another question -- Jarle, Is the HDF interface you 
> are working on support for HDF4.1rX or HDF5 ? These appear to be
> humongously different.  And _that_ puts me right back on topic for 
> this newsfroup: The HDF support in IDL looks like it is for  HDF4.1rX. 
> Does anyone know if and when RSI plan to support HDF5 in IDL? The project
> I work on is threatening to go over to HDF5 on some unspecified timescale.

In 5.3 IDL supports HDF4.1rX where X>=2 I believe (at least for
compression) what the minor version number is for the DLM I am not
sure.

My support for HDF in PDL is also based on HDF4.1(r3) to be compatible
with IDL (I primarily use IDL for this). I really wish I was
interfacing to HDF5 though as the programming interface is soooo much
nicer.. (My PDL interface is intended to be much more high-level than
the IDL interface and writing that with HDF4.1 s*cks.)

I don't think you should lose sleep yet though as HDF5 is still in
flux and there is certainly major efforts under way to enable mappings
from HDF4 objects to HDF5. And looking at NCSA's page this might be of
interest: (from http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/tools5.html)

IDL-HDF5 Interface 
  In support of EarthScan, Luke Bishop at Photon Research Associates,
  Inc.  has developed an IDL-HDF5 Interface. An IDL-HDF5 Reference
  Manual is available in PDF format. Contact Luke for more details
  regarding the interface.


			Jarle.