>From: Bill Fingerhut <address@hidden> >Organization: Lyndon State College >Keywords: 200003231338.GAA28882 McIDAS-X MAP names Bill, >McIDAS recognizes several map names, such as EURO and USA, >which are quite useful. I believe a map of Canada would be >just as useful, but there is no such 'predefined' map name. You are correct, of course. We felt that there needed to be a large list of map names recognized by McIDAS, that is why we wrote the McBASI script, BKGMAP.BAT, and integrated it with both the Fkey and MCGUI interfaces. For reference, BKGMAP's invocation syntax is: REM ? Invocation: REM ? BATCH mnemonic frame LALO SVF PRO FLIP BAR EG "BKGMAP.BAT REM ? | | | | | | | | |_ BATCH file name REM ? | | | | | | | |___ erase after REM ? | | | | | | |______ draw data bar REM ? | | | | | |___________ flip to menu REM ? | | | | |_______________ map projection REM ? | | | |___________________ VIRT file save REM ? | | |________________________ LATxLON line flag REM ? | |_____________________________ frame to draw in REM ? |_____________________________________ map mnemonic The idea behind the use of BKGMAP.BAT is that it contains definitions for a large variety of maps; you pass it the mnemonic for the map you want (with other things you can see from this list); and then you plot on top of the map using the NAV=C keyword for ADDE commands; the OLAY map type for Unidata-supplied commands; or the SAT map for SSEC commands. >Does one exist that I am not aware of? No. >If not, could you suggest to the higher powers that one be >created? This problem is being attacked in a much different way. In a future McIDAS release, there will be map definition files where the user can define his/her own map mnemonics. The newer ADDE applications will read this file; find the mnemonic; and use the user-supplied map definition. In fact, the setup is even more flexible than this. Instead of just one definition file, there will be three: a user-defined one, a site defined one, and a system one. The system one would be one that is delivered with the distribution. The site defined one would be one that the McIDAS administrator at a site can define. The user defined one would be configurable on a user-by-user basis. The search order for getting the map mnemonic would be then user followed by site followed by system. This feature will really make it a lot easier to plot on specific maps. Unfortunately, it is not in the current distribution. >Thanks, Bill You are welcome. Tom
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