Some time ago,
on the 26th of July, to be more accurate, I showed how somewhat decent-looking maps can be created with gnuplot. With the wisdom of hindsight, that was a rather ugly hack, I must say. Even worse, it seems that it is not quite fail-safe. At least, I have obtained reports complaining about it. Could we, then, do better? Could we, perhaps, throw out that disgusting gawk script, with all the hassle that comes with it? Could we, possibly, manage the whole affair in gnuplot? Sure, we could. And here is how, just keep reading!
On
the 17th of January, we saw that in the new version of gnuplot, functions take on a funny property, namely, they can contain algebraic statements not related to the return value. We also saw that this feature can be used to perform searches of some sort: as we "plot" a file, and step through the numbers in the file, we can assign values to variables, provided that some conditions are fulfilled. It is easy to see that in this way, we can determine the minimum or the maximum of a data file, e.g. But we can do much more than that.
We should also recall from that old post on the map what the contour file looks like. In case you have forgotten, here is a small section of it
# Contour 0, label: 2
-0.391812 3.63636 2
...
-0.959596 3.50978 2
-0.959596 3.50978 2
...
-0.391812 3.63636 2
# Contour 1, label: 1.5
-1.20098 4.51515 1.5
-1.16162 4.54423 1.5
-1.15982 4.54545 1.5
...
What we have to realise is the following: first, contours lines belonging to the same level are not necessarily contiguous (this is quite obvious, for there is no reason why they should be), and if there is a discontinuity, it manifests itself in a single blank line in the contour file, and second, contour lines belonging to different levels are separated by two blank lines. So, in the data file above, there is a blank between the lines -0.959596 3.50978 2, and
-0.959596 3.50978 2, and there are two blanks between -0.391812 3.63636 2, and # Contour 1, label: 1.5. By the way, the third column is the value of that particular contour line.
This observation has at least one important consequence: we can decide which contour line we want to plot, simply by using the index keyword. You might recall, that indexing the data file pulls out one data block, which is defined by a chunk of data flanked by two blank lines.
Now, what about the labels, and the white space that they need? Well, the white space is quite easy: what we will plot is not the contour line, but a function, which returns an undefined value at the place of the white space, e.g., this one (whatever eps and xtoy mean)
f(x,y) = ((x-x0)*(x-x0)+(y-y0)*(y-y0)*xtoy*xtoy > eps ? y : 1/0)
Normally we would plot the contour lines as
plot 'contour.dat' using 1:2 with lines
but instead of this, now we will use this
plot 'contour.dat' using 1:(f($1,$2)) with lines
This will leave out those points which are too close to (x0, y0). And the labels? Well, that is not difficult either. Take this function
lab(x,y) = ( (x == x0 && y == y0) ? stringcolumn(3) : "")
and this plot
plot 'contour.dat' using 1:2:(lab($1,$2)) with labels
This will put the labels at (x0, y0), and even better, we haven't got to set the labels by hand, they are taken from the data file.
So, we have seen how we can plot the contour, leave out some white space, and then put a label at that position. The only remaining question is how we determine where the label should be. And this is where we come back to our inline functions. For the sake of example, let us take this function and the accompanying plot
g(x,y)=(((x > xl && x < xh && y > yl && y < yh) ? (x0 = x, y0 = y) : 1), 1/0)
plot 'contour.dat' using 1:(g($1,$2))
What on Earth does this plot do? The plot itself does absolutely nothing: it is always 1/0. However, while we are doing this, we set the value of x0, and y0, if the two arguments are not too close to the edge of the plot. This latter condition is needed, otherwise labels could fall on the border, which doesn't look particularly nice.
By now, we have all the bits and pieces, we have only got to put them together. Let us get down to business, then!
I will split the script into two: the first produces the dummy data, while the second does the actual plotting. So, first, the data production.
reset
filename = "cont.dat"
xi = -5; xa = 0; yi = 2; ya = 5;
xl = xi + 0.1*(xa - xi); xh = xa - 0.1*(xa-xi);
yl = yi + 0.1*(ya - yi); yh = ya - 0.1*(ya-yi);
xtoy = (xa-xi) / (ya-yi)
set xrange [xi:xa]
set yrange [yi:ya]
set isosample 100, 100
set table 'test.dat'
splot sin(1.3*x)*cos(.9*y)+cos(.8*x)*sin(1.9*y)+cos(y*.2*x)
unset table
set cont base
set cntrparam level incremental -3, 0.5, 3
unset surf
set table filename
splot sin(1.3*x)*cos(0.9*y)+cos(.8*x)*sin(1.9*y)+cos(y*.2*x)
unset table
What we should pay attention to here is the definition of a handful of variables at the very beginning. Some are already obvious, like xi, xa and the like, and some will become clear in the second part. Now, the plotting takes place here
reset
unset key
set macro
set xrange [xi:xa]
set yrange [yi:ya]
set tics out nomirror
set palette rgbformulae 33,13,10
eps = 0.05
g(x,y)=(((x > xl && x < xh && y > yl && y < yh) ? (x0 = x, y0 = y) : 1), 1/0)
f(x,y) = ((x-x0)*(x-x0)+(y-y0)*(y-y0)*xtoy*xtoy > eps ? y : 1/0)
lab(x,y) = ( (x == x0 && y == y0) ? stringcolumn(3) : "")
ZERO = "x0 = xi - (xa-xi), y0 = yi - (ya-yi), b = b+1"
SEARCH = "filename index b using 1:(g($1,$2))"
PLOT = "filename index b using 1:(f($1,$2)) with lines lt -1 lw 1"
LABEL = "filename index b using 1:2:(lab($1,$2)) with labels"
b = 0
plot 'test.dat' with image, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL, @ZERO, \
@SEARCH, @PLOT, @LABEL
A bit convoluted, isn't it? OK, we will walk through the script, line by line.
First is the range setting, and then ticks go to the outside, just for aesthetic reasons. We also define eps here, which determines how much "white space" we have for the labels. Then we define the three functions that we discussed above. We have already seen eps, and the meaning of it, but what about xtoy? Despite its name, this is not something to play with, rather the ratio of x to y, or more precisely, the ratio of the xrange to the yrange. This is needed, if the two ranges are of different order of magnitude, e.g., if xrange is something like [0:1], while yrange is [0:1000]. But this ratio is automatically calculated at the beginning, you haven't got to worry about it.
After this, we define 4 macros. These are abbreviations for longer chunks of code, and make life really easier. The idea is that when confronted with a macro, gnuplot expands it as a string, and then acts accordingly. In my opinion, if written properly, macros can make the script rather readable.
The first of the macros, ZERO, is needed, because in our SEARCH macro, which is nothing but a call to the function g(x,y), if the condition is not satisfied for a particular data block, then x0, y0 wouldn't be updated, therefore, the label would end up at the wrong position. At the same time, ZERO also increments the value of b, which determines which data block we are actually plotting. b is used in the indexing in the macros SEARCH, PLOT, and LABEL. We have already mentioned SEARCH, PLOT plots the contour with the white space at the position given by x0, and y0 (this is calculated in the SEARCH macro), and finally, LABEL places the value of the contour line at that position.
At this point, we have defined everything, all that is left is plotting. We do it 13 times, because our zrange, or the contour lines were given between -3, and 3, with steps of 0.5. In this particular case, there are only 10 contour lines, and gnuplot will complain that the last 3 data blocks are empty, but this is not an error, only a warning. Shouldn't we look at the figure, perhaps? But of course! Here it is:
The only thing that I should like to point out is that the white space is made for a particular contour line, but there is no guarantee that, if the contour lines are too close to each other, the label does not cover a neighbouring contour line. If that happens, I would simply suggest to increase the contour spacing by incrementing the parameter in the set cntrparam line.
I hope that this method proves better, than the other one, and that it will be easier to use. In the next post, I will re-visit the inline functions, and show a nifty trick with them. Cheers,
Gnuplotter
