Re: Plotting double precision

["Mark Goosman" <mgoosman(at)rsinc.com>]

I am happy to say that in IDL 5.4, scheduled for release this summer, will
have support for
displaying double precision values in both Direct Graphics and Object
Graphics. In the case
of Direct Graphics, extensive work has been done to prevent IDL from
converting incoming
data to single precision values. The work in Object Graphics addressed the
limitations of
OpenGL accepting only single precision values for input.

Research Systems is interested in working with any IDL user who is
interested in participating
in the IDL 5.4 Beta program which will begin in the next couple of months.
Anyone who is interested
in participating as an IDL 5.4 Beta Tester can contact me at Research
Systems (mgoosman@rsinc.com).
We are always interested in making sure that changes and enhancements to any
area of IDL,
especially one as significant as the Direct and Object Graphics systems does
not cause problems
for existing IDL users and their applications.

Best regards,

Mark Goosman

********************************************
Mark Goosman
IDL Product Manager
Research Systems, Inc.
4990 Pearl East Circle
Boulder, CO 80301 USA

Tel: 303-413-3966
Fax: 303-786-9909
Email: mgoosman@rsinc.com

WWW: http://www.ResearchSystems.com
*************************************

Jacques Basson <jfb37@NOSPAM.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
38B4FD5B.D776DF61@NOSPAM.cam.ac.uk">news:38B4FD5B.D776DF61@NOSPAM.cam.ac.uk...
> Hi all
>
> Does anyone know how I can plot double precision values in IDL. The plot
> routine help says:
>
> Plots created with PLOT are limited to the range and precision of
> single-precision floating-point values.
>
> Unfortunaltely, this means that values which do not lie in the
> +-10^(+-38) range can't be easily plotted. Of course as luck would have
> it, my values are of the order 10^(-39), and I'd rather not have factors
> of 10 in my labels. The other option would be to take logs before
> plotting rather than using the /ylog keyword, but I prefer the axis
> label to have the value of the variable, rather than its log.
>
> Thanks
> Jacques Basson