Ubuntu Manpage: grd2cpt - Make linear or histogram-equalized color palette table from grid

Provided by: gmt-common_5.2.1+dfsg-3build1_all

NAME

       grd2cpt - Make linear or histogram-equalized color palette table from grid

SYNOPSIS

       grd2cpt  grid  [  [+]transparency  ]  [  cpt  ]  [  [i|o]  ]  [ nlevels ] [ [R|r|h|c ] [ zlo/zhi ] [  ] [
       minlimit/maxlimit ] [  ] [  ] [ [i|o] ] [ region ] [ zstart/zstop/zinc ] [ -|+|_|= ] [ [level] ] [   ]  [
       ]

       Note: No space is allowed between the option flag and the associated arguments.

DESCRIPTION

grd2cpt reads one or more grid files and writes a color palette (CPT) file to standard output. The CPT
file is based on an existing master CPT file of your choice, and the mapping from data value to colors is
through the data's cumulative distribution function (CDF), so that the colors are histogram equalized.
Thus if the grid(s) and the resulting CPT file are used in grdimage with a linear projection, the colors
will be uniformly distributed in area on the plot. Let z be the data values in the grid. Define CDF(Z) =
(# of z < Z) / (# of z in grid). (NaNs are ignored). These z-values are then normalized to the master CPT
file and colors are sampled at the desired intervals.

The color palette includes three additional colors beyond the range of z-values. These are the background
color (B) assigned to values lower than the lowest z-value, the foreground color (F) assigned to values
higher than the highest z-value, and the NaN color (N) painted wherever values are undefined. For color
tables beyond the standard GMT offerings, visit cpt-city: http://soliton.vm.bytemark.co.uk/pub/cpt-city/.

If the master CPT file includes B, F, and N entries, these will be copied into the new master file. If
not, the parameters COLOR_BACKGROUND, COLOR_FOREGROUND, and COLOR_NAN from the gmt.conf file or the
command line will be used. This default behavior can be overruled using the options -D, -M or -N.

The color model (RGB, HSV or CMYK) of the palette created by makecpt will be the same as specified in the
header of the master CPT file. When there is no COLOR_MODEL entry in the master CPT file, the COLOR_MODEL
specified in the gmt.conf file or on the command line will be used.

REQUIRED ARGUMENTS

       grid   Names of one or more grid files used to derive the color palette table. All grids need to have the
              same size and dimensions. (See GRID FILE FORMATS below).

OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS

       -A[+]transparency
              Sets  a constant level of transparency (0-100) for all color slices.  Prepend + to also affect the
              fore-, back-, and nan-colors [Default is no transparency, i.e., 0 (opaque)].

       -Ccpt  Selects the master color table to use in the interpolation. Choose among the built-in tables (type
              grd2cpt to see the list) or give the name of an existing CPT file [Default  gives  a  rainbow  CPT
              file].   Yet  another  option  is  to  specify  -Ccolor1,color2[,color3,...]   to  build  a linear
              continuous CPT from those colors automatically.  In this case colorn can be  a  r/g/b  triplet,  a
              color name, or an HTML hexadecimal color (e.g. #aabbcc ).

       -D[i|o]
              Select  the back- and foreground colors to match the colors for lowest and highest z-values in the
              output CPT file [Default uses the colors specified in the master file, or  those  defined  by  the
              parameters  COLOR_BACKGROUND,  COLOR_FOREGROUND,  and COLOR_NAN]. Append i to match the colors for
              the lowest and highest values in the input (instead of the output) CPT file.

       -Enlevels
              Create a linear color table by dividing the grid z-range into nlevels equidistant slices.

       -F[R|r|h|c]
              Force output CPT file to written with r/g/b codes, gray-scale values or color name (R, default) or
              r/g/b codes only (r), or h-s-v codes (h), or c/m/y/k codes (c).

       -Gzlo/zhi
              Truncate the incoming CPT so that the lowest and highest z-levels are to zlo and zhi.  If  one  of
              these  equal  NaN  then we leave that end of the CPT alone.  The truncation takes place before any
              resampling.

       -I     Reverses the sense of color progression in the master CPT file. Also exchanges the foreground  and
              background   colors,   including   those   specified   by   the  parameters  COLOR_BACKGROUND  and
              COLOR_FOREGROUND.

       -Lminlimit/maxlimit
              Limit range of CPT file to minlimit/maxlimit,  and  don't  count  data  outside  this  range  when
              estimating CDF(Z). [Default uses min and max of data.]

       -M     Overrule  background,  foreground, and NaN colors specified in the master CPT file with the values
              of the parameters COLOR_BACKGROUND, COLOR_FOREGROUND, and COLOR_NAN specified in the gmt.conf file
              or on the command line. When combined with -D, only COLOR_NAN is considered.

       -N     Do not write out the background, foreground, and NaN-color fields [Default will write them].

       -Q[i|o]
              Selects a logarithmic interpolation scheme [Default is linear].  -Qi expects input z-values to  be
              log10(z),  assigns  colors,  and writes out z [Default]. -Qo takes log10(z) first, assigns colors,
              and writes out z.

       -R[unit]xmin/xmax/ymin/ymax[r] (more ...)
              Specify the region of interest.

       -Szstart/zstop/zinc or -Sn
              Set steps in CPT file. Calculate entries in CPT file from zstart to  zstop  in  steps  of  (zinc).
              Default chooses arbitrary values by a crazy scheme based on equidistant values for a Gaussian CDF.
              Use -Sn to select n points from such a cumulative normal distribution [11].

       -T-|+|_|=
              Force the color table to be symmetric about zero (from -R to +R).  Append flag to set the range R:
              -  for  R  =|zmin|,  +  for  R  =  |zmax|, _ for R = min(|zmin|, |zmax|), or = for R = max(|zmin|,
              |zmax|).

       -V     Verbose operation. This will write CDF(Z) estimates to stderr. [Default is silent.]

       -W     Do not interpolate the input color table but pick the output colors starting at the  beginning  of
              the map. This is particularly useful in combination with a categorical color table. Cannot be used
              in combination with -Z.

       -Z     Will create a continuous color palette. [Default is discontinuous, i.e., constant color intervals]

       -^ or just -
              Print a short message about the syntax of the command, then exits (NOTE: on Windows use just -).

       -+ or just +
              Print  an  extensive usage (help) message, including the explanation of any module-specific option
              (but not the GMT common options), then exits.

       -? or no arguments
              Print a complete usage (help) message, including the explanation of options, then exits.

       --version
              Print GMT version and exit.

       --show-datadir
              Print full path to GMT share directory and exit.

GRID FILE FORMATS

By default GMT writes out grid as single precision floats in a COARDS-complaint netCDF file format.
However, GMT is able to produce grid files in many other commonly used grid file formats and also
facilitates so called "packing" of grids, writing out floating point data as 1- or 2-byte integers. To
specify the precision, scale and offset, the user should add the suffix =id[/scale/offset[/nan]], where
id is a two-letter identifier of the grid type and precision, and scale and offset are optional scale
factor and offset to be applied to all grid values, and nan is the value used to indicate missing data.
In case the two characters id is not provided, as in =/scale than a id=nf is assumed. When reading
grids, the format is generally automatically recognized. If not, the same suffix can be added to input
grid file names. See grdconvert and Section grid-file-format of the GMT Technical Reference and Cookbook
for more information.

When reading a netCDF file that contains multiple grids, GMT will read, by default, the first
2-dimensional grid that can find in that file. To coax GMT into reading another multi-dimensional
variable in the grid file, append ?varname to the file name, where varname is the name of the variable.
Note that you may need to escape the special meaning of ? in your shell program by putting a backslash in
front of it, or by placing the filename and suffix between quotes or double quotes. The ?varname suffix
can also be used for output grids to specify a variable name different from the default: "z". See
grdconvert and Sections modifiers-for-CF and grid-file-format of the GMT Technical Reference and Cookbook
for more information, particularly on how to read splices of 3-, 4-, or 5-dimensional grids.

EXAMPLES

       Sometimes you don't want to make a CPT file (yet) but would find it helpful to know that 90% of your data
       lie between z1 and z2, something you cannot learn from grdinfo. So you can do this to see some points  on
       the CDF(Z) curve (use -V option to see more):

              gmt grd2cpt mydata.nc -V > /dev/null

       To  make  a  CPT  file with entries from 0 to 200 in steps of 20, and ignore data below zero in computing
       CDF(Z), and use the built-in master cpt file relief, run

              gmt grd2cpt mydata.nc -Crelief -L0/10000 -S0/200/20 > mydata.cpt

COPYRIGHT

       2015, P. Wessel, W. H. F. Smith, R. Scharroo, J. Luis, and F. Wobbe

5.2.1                                           January 28, 2016                                   GRD2CPT(1gmt)