The following enhancements have been made to IDL's visualization functionality for the 6.1 release:
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New properties have been added to IDLgrPolygon and IDLgrSurface to give more control over the lighting and coloring of polygons and surfaces, enabling them to simulate the appearance of materials such as shiny metals, rubber, and so on. For more information about these new properties, see IDLgrPolygon and IDLgrSurface.
A new ALPHA_CHANNEL property has been added to IDLgrAxis, IDLgrContour, IDLgrPlot, IDLgrPolygon, IDLgrPolyline, IDLgrROI, IDLgrSurface, IDLgrSymbol, and IDLgrVolume to allow you to specify the transparency of an object. Specifying transparency allows you to "see through" an object in order to see another object that was drawn before it. Modifications have also been made to various existing keywords and properties to these objects to support this functionality. Alpha channel support information has also been added in Alpha Channel and Objects. Also see New IDL Object Properties.
The MAP_CONTINENTS and MAP_GRID procedures have been enhanced to allow display of continents and grid lines using UV (Cartesian) coordinates without the need to set up the
The new MAP_STRUCTURE keyword to the MAP_IMAGE function allows warping of an image to UV (Cartesian) coordinates without the need to set up the
The new FILL keyword to the MAP_PROJ_FORWARD function allows you to perform a tessellation on polygons returned by the POLYLINES keyword after any clipping or splitting has been completed. The use of the FILL keyword avoids having to first pass your data through MAP_PROJ_FORWARD, and then again through the IDLgrTessellator object. See MAP_PROJ_FORWARD for details.
IDL 6.1 now features CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) color model support for PostScript output in addition to the default RGB (red, green, blue) color model. CMYK graphics are sometimes required for printing or publication. IDL's support of CMYK PostScript output ensures that you can easily create publication-quality graphics. The direct graphics DEVICE procedure and the object graphics IDLgrClipboard::Draw method now support PostScript output using the CMYK color model via the CMYK keyword. See the following for details:
The IDLgrClipboard and IDLgrPrinter destination objects allow objects in a scene, viewgroup, or view to be output as vector or bitmap graphics. Several new keywords, discussed in the following sections, provide additional control over the vector graphic output. See IDLgrClipboard::Draw and IDLgrPrinter::Draw for complete reference information.
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The IDLgrClipboard::Draw method VECT_SHADING keyword affects the appearance of surfaces and polygons when the VECTOR and POSTSCRIPT keywords have also been set. When SHADING=1 (Gouraud shading) for IDLgrSurface or IDLgrPolygon, use this keyword to enable or disable smooth shading. See Smooth Shading in Vector Graphics for details.
The IDLgrClipboard or IDLgrPrinter VECT_TEXT_RENDER_METHOD keyword controls whether text appears as filled triangles or text primitives when the VECTOR keyword is also set. When text is rendered as text primitives, it can be edited by object-based graphics programs. See Text Rendering in Vector Graphics for details.
The IDLgrPrinter and IDLgrClipboard Draw methods support the VECT_SORTING keyword, which affects the appearance of the output when the VECTOR keyword has also been set. Use this keyword to simulate the depth buffer in Object Graphics in the output vector graphics file. See Primitive Object Sorting in Vector Graphics for details.