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Layer plot window
Layer plot windows consist of two main parts: at the top is the
plot itself, and at the bottom is the control panel.
The control panel is where you configure what will be plotted.
For a simple scatter plot it may just be a case of selecting what
columns to plot against each other, but it can get quite detailed.
If you want more screen space to play with, it can be helpful
to float the control panel into a separate window using the
Float Controls (
) toolbar button.
To unfloat the control panel, either just close the control panel window,
or click the Float Controls toolbar button again.
With floating controls, the window looks like the following figure.
Layer plot window with floated control panel
The control panel itself has two parts: a list on the left of
currently active controls (represented by names and icons),
and a panel on the right which shows the currently selected control.
Click on one of the control entries on the left to see its details
on the right.
Different controls have different detail panels, but in general each
one will have multiple tabs for configuring different things.
You can select these by clicking on the tab names.
In general the best way to learn about the options is to click on
the different controls and their tabs to see what's available
and experiment with the various options to see what happens to the plot.
The control list has two types of entry:
-
Fixed controls:
- These control the overall plot appearance.
In the above figure, the fixed controls
Axes (
) and
Legend (
) are visible.
The different fixed controls are described in
Appendix A.5.3.
-
Layer controls:
- These determine the actual data that will be plotted and what
graphical form it takes.
Layer controls can be added
(using the Layers menu or corresponding toolbar buttons),
removed
(using the Remove Current Layer (
)
toolbar button),
and moved up and down
(by dragging with the grab handle (
).
Each one contributes a layer or layers to the plot.
Layers lower down the list are plotted later
(perhaps obscuring earlier ones),
so you can drag them up and down until you have the layers you want on top.
The different layer controls are described in
Appendix A.5.4.
The toolbar contains the following actions (repeated in the menus):
-
Float Controls
- Display control panel in a floating window rather than at
the bottom of the plot window, as described above.
-
Add Table Layer
- Add a new table layer control
to the control stack.
-
Add Function Layer (plane plot only)
- Add a new function layer control
to the control stack.
Note this option is currently only available for the
Plane Plot.
-
Remove Current Layer
- Deletes the currently selected layer control from the control stack.
-
Draw Subset Region
- Allows you to draw a region on the screen defining a new
Row Subset. When you have finished
drawing it, click this button again to indicate you're done.
See Appendix A.5.2.1 for more details.
-
Subset From Visible
- Defines a new Row Subset
consisting of only the points which
are currently visible on the plotting surface.
See Appendix A.5.2.1 for more explanation.
-
Replot
- Redraws the current plot. It is usually not necessary to
use this button, since if you change any of the plot characteristics
with the controls in this window the plot will be redrawn
automatically. However if you have changed the data, e.g. by
editing cells in the Data Window,
or by redefining a subset, the plot is not automatically redrawn.
Clicking this button redraws the plot taking account of any changes
to the table data.
-
Rescale
- Rescales the axes of the current plot so that it contains all
the data points in the currently selected subsets.
By default the plot will be scaled like this, but it it may have changed
because of changes in the subset selection or from zooming in or out.
-
Zoom In
- Zooms the plot in around its centre.
In most cases using the mouse wheel if available is a better option,
but this button is available as an alternative.
-
Zoom Out
- Zooms the plot out around its centre.
In most cases using the mouse wheel if available is a better option,
but this button is available as an alternative.
-
Lock Axes
- Usually, when the data plotted has changed significantly,
the axes are automatically rescaled so that all the points are visible.
The application makes a guess about when it's a good idea to do this
automatic rescaling. If you don't want it to auto-rescale, set this
toggle button, and it won't rescale unless it really has to.
This is not available for the Sky Plot.
-
Export Plot
- Allows you to save the plot in a variety of graphics formats
using the Plot Export window.
Next Previous Up Contents
Next: Defining Subsets by Region
Up: Layer Plot Windows
Previous: Differences From Classic Plot Windows
TOPCAT - Tool for OPerations on Catalogues And Tables
Starlink User Note253
TOPCAT web page:
http://www.starlink.ac.uk/topcat/
Author email:
m.b.taylor@bristol.ac.uk
Mailing list:
topcat-user@bristol.ac.uk