PSXY(l) PSXY(l)
NAME
psxy - Plot lines, polygons, and symbols on maps
SYNOPSIS
psxy files -Jparameters -Rwest/east/south/north[r] [ -A ]
[ -Btickinfo ] [ -Ccptfile ] [ -E[x|y|X|Y][cap][/pen] ] [
-Gfill ] [ -H[nrec] ] [ -K ] [ -L ] [ -N ] [ -M[flag] ] [
-O ] [ -P ] [ -S[symbol][size] ] [ -U[/dx/dy/][label] ] [
-V ] [ -W[pen] ] [ -Xx-shift ] [ -Yy-shift ] [ -: ] [
-ccopies ] [ -bi[s][n] ]
DESCRIPTION
psxy reads (x,y) pairs from files [or standard input] and
generates PostScript code that will plot lines, polygons,
or symbols at those locations on a map. If a symbol is
selected and no symbol size given, then psxy will inter-
pret the third column of the input data as symbol size.
Symbols whose size is <= 0 are skipped. If no symbols are
specified then the symbol code (see -S below) must be pre-
sent as last column in the input. Multiple segment files
may be plotted using the -M option. If -S is not
selected, a line connecting the data points will be drawn
instead. To explicitly close polygons, use -L. Select a
shade with -G. If -G is set, -W will control whether the
polygon outline is drawn or not. If a symbol is selected,
-G and -W determines the fill color and outline/no out-
line, respectively. The PostScript code is written to
standard output.
files List one or more file-names. If no files are given,
psxy will read standard input.
-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)
-Joclon0/lat0/lonp/latp/scale (Oblique Mercator -
point and pole)
-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
No space between the option flag and the associated argu-
ments.
-A Suppress drawing line segments as great circle
Arcs. [Default draws great circle arcs.]
-B Sets map boundary tickmark intervals. See psbasemap
for details.
-C Give a color palette file. When used with -S, lets
symbol color be determined by the z-value in the
third column. Additional fields are shifted over by
one column (optional size would be 4th rather than
3rd field, etc.). If -S is not set, psxy expects
the user to supply a multisegment polygon file
(requires -M) and will look for -Zval strings in
each multisegment header. The val will control the
color via the cpt file.
-E Draw error bars. Append x and/or y to indicate
which bars you want to draw (Default is both x and
y). The x and/or y errors must be stored in the
columns after the (x,y) pair [or (x,y,size)
triplet]. The cap parameter indicates the length of
the end-cap on the error bars [0.25c (or 0.1i)].
Pen attributes for error bars may also be set.
[Defaults: width = 1, color = 0/0/0, texture =
solid]. If upper case X and/or Y is used we will
instead draw "box-and-whisker" (or "stem-and-leaf")
symbols. The x (or y) coordinate is then taken as
the median value, and 4 more columns are expected
to contain the minimum (0% quartile), the 25% quar-
tile, the 75% quartile, and the maximum (100% quar-
tile) values. The 25-75% box may be filled by using
-G.
-G Select filling of polygons and symbols. Append the
shade (0-255), color (r/g/b), or P|pdpi/pattern
(polygons only) [Default is no fill]. Note when -M
is chosen, psxy will search for -G and -W strings
in all the subheaders and let any found values
over-ride the command line settings.
-H Input file(s) has Header record(s). Number of
header records can be changed by editing your .gmt-
defaults file. If used, GMT default is 1 header
record.
-K More PostScript code will be appended later
[Default terminates the plot system].
-L Force closed polygons: connect the endpoints of the
line-segment(s) and draw polygons.
-M Multiple segment file. Segments are separated by a
record whose first character is flag. [Default is
'>'].
-N Do NOT skip symbols that fall outside map border
[Default plots points inside border only].
-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].
-S Plot symbols. If present, size is symbol size in
the unit set in .gmtdefaults (unless c, i, m, or p
is appended). The uppercase symbols A, C, D, H, I,
S, T are normalized to have the same area as the
circle, while the corresponding lowercase symbols
all are circumscribed by the circle. Choose
between these symbol codes:
-S Read symbol code (see below) from last column in
the input data. Cannot be used in conjunction with
-b. Optionally, append c, i, m, p to indicate that
the size information in the input data is in units
of cm, inch, meter, or point, respectively.
[Default is MEASURE_UNIT].
-Sa star. size is diameter of circumscribing circle.
-Sb bar extending from base to y. size is bar width.
Append u if size is in x-units [Default is plot-
distance units]. By default, base = 0. Append bbase
to change this value.
-Sc circle. size is diameter of circle.
-Sd diamond. size is diameter of circumscribing circle.
-Se ellipse. Direction (in degrees counter-clockwise
from horizontal), major_axis, and minor_axis must
be found in columns 3, 4, and 5.
-SE Same as -Se, except azimuth (in degrees east of
north) should be given instead of direction. The
azimuth will be mapped into an angle based on the
chosen map projection (-Se leaves the directions
unchanged.) Furthermore, the axes lengths must be
given in km instead of plot-distance units.
-Sf front. -Sfgap/size[dir][type][:offset]. Supply dis-
tance gap between symbols and symbol size. If gap
is negative, it is interpreted to mean the number
of symbols along the front instead. Append dir to
plot symbols on the left or right side of the front
[Default is centered]. Append type to specify which
symbol to plot: box, circle, fault, slip, or trian-
gle. [Default is fault]. Slip means left-lateral
or right-lateral strike-slip arrows (centered is
not an option). Append :offset to offset the first
symbol from the beginning of the front by that
amount [Default is 0].
-Sh hexagon. size is diameter of circumscribing circle.
-Si inverted triangle. size is diameter of circumscrib-
ing circle.
-Sl letter or text string (less than 64 characters).
Give size, and append /string after the size. Note
that the size is only approximate; no individual
scaling is done for different characters. Remember
to escape special characters like *. Optionally,
you may append %font to select a particular font
[Default is ANOT_FONT].
-Sp point. No size needs to be specified (1 pixel is
used).
-Ss square. size is diameter of circumscribing circle.
-St triangle. size is diameter of circumscribing cir-
cle.
-Sv vector. Direction (in degrees counter-clockwise
from horizontal) and length must be found in
columns 3 and 4. size, if present, will be inter-
preted as arrowwidth/headlength/headwidth [Default
is 0.075c/0.3c/0.25c (or 0.03i/0.12i/0.1i)]. By
default arrow attributes remains invariant to the
length of the arrow. To have the size of the vector
scale down with decreasing size, append nnorm,
where vectors shorter than norm will have their
attributes scaled by length/norm.
-SV Same as -Sv, except azimuth (in degrees east of
north) should be given instead of direction. The
azimuth will be mapped into an angle based on the
chosen map projection (-Sv leaves the directions
unchanged.)
-Sw pie wedge. Start and stop directions (in degrees
counter-clockwise from horizontal) for pie slice
must be found in columns 3 and 4.
-Sx cross. size is diameter of circumscribing circle.
-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 Set pen attributes. [Defaults: width = 1, color =
0/0/0, texture = solid]. Implicitly draws the out-
line of symbols with selected pen.
-X -Y Shift origin of plot by (x-shift,y-shift). Prepend
a for absolute coordinates; the default (r) will
reset plot origin.
-: Toggles between (longitude,latitude) and (lati-
tude,longitude) input/output. [Default is (longi-
tude,latitude)]. Applies to geographic coordinates
only.
-c Specifies the number of plot copies. [Default is 1]
-bi Selects binary input. Append s for single precision
[Default is double]. Append n for the number of
columns in the binary file(s). [Default is the
required number of columns given the chosen set-
tings].
EXAMPLES
To plot solid red circles (diameter = 0.25 cm) at the
positions listed in the file DSDP.xy on a Mercator map at
5 cm/degree of the area 150E to 154E, 18N to 23N, with
tickmarks every 1 degree and gridlines every 15 minutes,
try:
psxy DSDP.xy -R150/154/18/23 -Jm5c -Sc0.25c -G255/0/0
-B1g15m | lpr
To plot the xyz values in the file quakes.xyzm as circles
with size given by the magnitude in the 4th column and
color based on the depth in the third using the color
palette cpt on a linear map, try
psxy quakes.xyzm -R0/1000/0/1000 -JX6i -Sc -Ccpt -B200 >
map.ps
To plot the file trench.xy on a Mercator map, with white
triangles with sides 0.25 inch on the left side of the
line, spaced every 0.8 inch, use
psxy trench.xy -R150/200/20/50 -Jm0.15i -Sf0.8i/0.1ilt
-G255 -W -B10 | lpr br
To plot the data in the file misc.d as symbols determined
by the code in the last column, and with size given by the
magnitude in the 4th column, and color based on the third
column via the color palette cpt on a linear map, try
psxy misc.d -R0/100/-50/100 -JX6i -S -Ccpt -B20 > t.ps
BUGS
The -N option does not adjust the BoundingBox information
so you may have to post-process the PostScript outout with
epstool or ps2epsi to obtain a correct BoundingBox.
psxy cannot handle filling of polygons that contain the
south or north pole. For such a polygon, make a copy and
split it into two and make each explicitly contain the
polar point. The two polygons will combine to give the
desired effect when filled; to draw outline use the origi-
nal polygon.
SEE ALSO
gmt(l), psbasemap(l), psxyz(l)
1 Mar 2002 PSXY(l)