NAME
pscoast - To plot land-masses, water-masses, coastlines, borders, and
rivers
SYNOPSIS
pscoast -Jparameters -Rwest/east/south/north[r] [
-Amin_area[/min_level/max_level] ] [ -Btickinfo ] [ -Cfill ] [ -Dreso-
lution ] [ -Eazimuth/elevation ] [ -Gfill ] [ -Iriver[/pen] ] [ -K ] [
-L[f][x]lon0/lat0[/slon]/slat/length[m|n|k][:label:just][+ppen][+ffill]
] [ -O ] [ -M[flag] ] [ -Nborder[/pen] ] [ -O ] [ -P ] [ -Q ] [ -Sfill
] [ -T[f|m][x]lon0/lat0/size[/info][:w,e,s,n:][+gint[/mint]] ] [
-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 politi-
cal 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 reso-
lutions. If the user selects to paint the land-areas and does not spec-
ify fill of water-areas then the latter will be transparent (i.e., ear-
lier 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 .gmtdefaults4, but this
can be overridden on the command line by appending c, i, or m to
the scale/width value. For map height, max dimension, or min
dimension, append h, +, or - to the width, respectively.
CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS:
-Jclon0/lat0/scale (Cassini)
-Jjlon0/scale (Miller)
-Jmscale (Mercator - Greenwich and Equator as origin)
-Jmlon0/lat0/scale (Mercator - Give meridian and standard paral-
lel)
-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 Car-
ree))
-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]][d] (Linear, log, and power
scaling)
More details can be found in the psbasemap man pages.
-R xmin, xmax, ymin, and ymax specify the Region of interest. For
geographic regions, these limits correspond to west, east,
south, and north and you may specify them in decimal degrees or
in [+-]dd:mm[:ss.xxx][W|E|S|N] format. Append r if lower left
and upper right map coordinates are given instead of wesn. The
two shorthands -Rg -Rd stand for global domain (0/360 or
-180/+180 in longitude respectively, with -90/+90 in latitude).
For calendar time coordinates you may either give relative time
(relative to the selected TIME_EPOCH and in the selected
TIME_UNIT; append t to -JX|x), or absolute time of the form
[date]T[clock] (append T to -JX|x). At least one of date and
clock must be present; the T is always required. The date string
must be of the form [-]yyyy[-mm[-dd]] (Gregorian calendar) or
yyyy[-Www[-d]] (ISO week calendar), while the clock string must
be of the form hh:mm:ss[.xxx]. The use of delimiters and their
type and positions must be as indicated (however, input/output
and plotting formats are flexible).
OPTIONS
-A Features with an area smaller than min_area in km^2 or of hier-
archical 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 annotation and tickmark intervals; see the
psbasemap man page for all the details.
-C Set the shade (0-255), color (r/g/b), or pattern (p|Pdpi/pat-
tern; 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, h/s/v, with h in 0-360, s, and v in
0-1, and set COLOR_MODEL = hsv, or c/m/y/k, each in 0-100 %).
Alternatively, specify -Gpdpi/pattern, where pattern gives the
number of the built-in pattern (1-90) or the name of a Sun 1-,
8-, or 24-bit raster file. The dpi sets the resolution of the
image. For 1-bit rasters: use -GP for inverse video, or append
:Fr/g/b[B[r/g/b]] to specify fore- and background colors (use
r/g/b = - for transparency). See GMT Cookbook & Technical Ref-
erence Appendix E for information on individual patterns.
-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 spec-
ify x/y position instead. Scale is calculated at latitude slat
(optionally supply longitude slon for oblique projections
[Default is central meridian]), 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]. The default label equals the
distance unit (km, miles, nautical miles) and is justified on
top of the scale [t]. Change this by giving your own label (or -
to keep the default) and justification (l(eft), r(ight), t(op),
b(ottom), and u(unit) - using the label as a unit appended to
all distance annotations along the scale). If you want to place
a rectangle behind the scale, specify pen and/or fill parameters
with the +p and +f modifiers.
-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 bound-
aries 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)
-O Selects Overlay plot mode [Default initializes a new plot sys-
tem].
-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.
-T Draws a simple map directional rose centered on lon0/lat0. Use
-Tx to specify x/y position instead. The size is the diameter
of the rose, and optional label information can be specified to
override the default values of W, E, S, and N (Give :: to sup-
press all labels). The default [plain] map rose only labels
north. Use -Tf to get a "fancy" rose, and specify what kind of
rose you want drawn. The default [1] draws the two principal E-
W, N-S orientations, 2 adds the two intermediate NW-SE and NE-SW
orientations, while 3 adds the eight minor orientations WNW-ESE,
NNW-SSE, NNE-SSW, and ENE-WSW. For a magnetic compass rose,
specify -Tm. If given, info must be the two parameters dec/dla-
bel, where dec is the magnetic declination and dlabel is a label
for the magnetic compass needle (specify ’-’ to format a label
from dec). Then, both directions to geographic and magnetic
north are plotted [Default is geographic only]. If the north
label = * then a north star is plotted instead of the north
label. Annotation and two levels of tick intervals for geo-
graphic and magnetic directions are 10/5/1 and 30/5/1 degrees,
respectively; override these settings by appending
+gints[/mints]. Color and pen attributes are taken from
COLOR_BACKGROUND and TICK_PEN, respectively, while label fonts
and sizes follow the usual annotation, label, and header font
settings.
-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 abso-
lute coordinates; the default (r) will reset plot origin. Give
c to center plot using current page size.
-c Specifies the number of plot copies. [Default is 1].
-bo Selects binary output. Append s for single precision [Default is
double]. Append n for the number of columns in the binary
file(s).
EXAMPLES
To plot a green Africa with white outline on blue background, with per-
manent 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, use
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, run
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, use
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 cor-
recting 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 direc-
tory. 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 pro-
jection 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 rearrangements in Europe. We intend to update
these as high-resolution data become available 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 con-
sistency’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(l), gmt(l), grdlandmask(l), psbasemap(l)
GMT4.0 1 Oct 2004 PSCOAST(l)
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