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Re: white vectors and contours



> Is there any way to overlay white vectors, contours, and labels on color
> shaded plots? 
> 
> No other color is more distinguished than white on a strong color
> background. 

Here is one way I have done, but it is certainly not the easiest!

1) Make the plot you want with the to-be-white lines in some line
color/thickness that is not otherwise used. I usually use /COL=18
(thick magenta).

2) Make postscript:

Fprint -l cps -o filename.ps metafile.plt

--> it is essential to use "-l cps" to get the lines to translate
as colors.

3) Edit the postscript filename.ps in a text editor.

a) You will find one or two tables near the top of the file that look like:

ct 1 [0.000000 0.000000 0.000000] put
ct 2 [1.000000 0.000000 0.000000] put
ct 3 [0.000000 1.000000 0.000000] put
ct 4 [0.000000 0.000000 1.000000] put
ct 5 [0.000000 1.000000 1.000000] put
ct 6 [1.000000 0.000000 1.000000] put

These define the RGB values for the 6 color lines possible in ferret. 
If there are 2 such tables, the first refers to font colors, the second 
to line colors.

Change line definition 6 from magenta (RGB = 1,0,1) to be white:

ct 6 [1.000000 1.000000 1.000000] put

That will result in white lines where the screen plot had magenta lines.

b) Optionally, you may want to make the white lines thicker.
Down in the postscript draw commands, find the occurrence(s) of

3.000000 lw

This command tells the printer to make the subsequent vector draw
commands thickness 3. I find thickness 3 to be too thin to show white
lines very well. Fix this by changing this command to:

8.000000 lw

or some other value. You can make very thick lines this way!
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Note that either steps 3a or 3b can be used to make other such changes
in postscript generated by Fprint. For example, you might not like the
bright green of /COL=3. In that case you can edit the "ct" table as in
step (a) above to change 

ct 3 [0.000000 1.000000 0.000000] put

to

ct 3 [0.200000 1.000000 0.200000] put

which is a darker green.

Similarly, I find that even the thickest ferret lines (/COL=13 to 18)
are not thick enough when printed. In that case edit the "3.000000 lw"
occurrences as in step (b) above to make them any thickness you want.
You can even make lines thinner. e.g. by setting this to "0.500000 lw",
to make thin overlines for some purposes.

-->> A requirement to be able to do these edits relatively simply is to
have the lines in question be readily distinguishable, that is, to set
the lines you will later want to edit to be a unique color/thickness.
That's why I use /COL=18, which is so ugly I cannot imagine using it 
for real.

Billy K






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