Provided by: gmt-manpages_3.4.4-1_all bug

NAME

       pscoast - To plot land-masses, water-masses, coastlines, borders, and rivers

SYNOPSIS

       pscoast     -Jparameters     -Rwest/east/south/north[r]     [    -Amin_area[min_level    [
       -Eazimuth/elevation   ]   [    -Gfill    ]    [    -Iriver[/pen]    ]    [    -K    ]    [
       -L[f][x]lon0/lat0/slat/length[m|n|k]  ] [ -M[flag] ] [ -Nborder[/pen] ] [ -O ] [ -P ] [ -Q
       ] [ -Sfill ] [ -U[/dx/dy/][label] ] [ -V ] [ -Wpen  ]  [  -Xx-shift  ]  [  -Yy-shift  ]  [
       -ccopies ] [ -bo[s][n] ]

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 UNIT/degree, 1:xxxxx, or width in UNIT  (upper
              case  modifier).   UNIT is cm, inch, or m, depending on the MEASURE_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 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, with Equator 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 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
              0/0/4 (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, each in 0-255).

       -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  x/y  position
              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 (or binary, see -bo) 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)

       -bo    Selects binary output. Append s for single precision [Default is double].

       -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.
              Optionally,  append  a  label,  or c (which will plot the command string.). The GMT
              parameters  UNIX_TIME  and  UNIX_TIME_POS  can  affect  the  appearance;  see   the
              gmtdefaults man page for details.

       -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).  Prepend a for absolute coordinates; the
              default (r) will reset plot origin.

       -c     Specifies the number of plot copies. [Default is 1]

       -bo    Selects binary output. Append s for single precision [Default is double].

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) at 100 dots per inch, on a Mercator map at
       scale 1 cm/degree, try

       pscoast -R-30/-10/60/65 -Jm1c -B5 -Gp100/28 > 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.
       pscoast will first look for coastline files in directory $GMTHOME/share (where $GMTHOME is
       an environmental variable). If the desired file is not found, it will look  for  the  file
       coastline.conf  in  the  same  directory. This file may contain any number of records that
       each holds the full pathname of an alternative directory.  Comment  lines  (#)  and  blank
       lines are allowed. The desired file is then sought for in the alternate directories.

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(1gmt), gmt(1gmt), grdlandmask(1gmt), psbasemap(1gmt)

                                            1 Jan 2004                                 PSCOAST(l)