This is the visual definition icon responsible for specifying how gridded data is displayed. It controls features such as isolines, shading, highs & lows, and grid value plotting.
The macro language equivalent is mcont().
The Contouring Editor
Most of the parameters in this editor come directly from Magics, and are documented on the contour reference page. Parameters not listed there are as follows:
Grib Interpolation Regular Resolution
Sets the plotting resolution, in degrees, of GRIB fields encoded in space_view projection. The default is 0.1.
Grib Scaling of Retrieved Fields
Toggles the scaling of the retrieved fields On / Off. "Retrieved fields" are considered to be fields that have been retrieved from MARS or read from disk but are not the result of a Metview computation. They are expected to be in SI units. If this parameter is On, MAGICS will perform a unit conversion (scaling) on the retrieved fields that it plots, converting these from SI units to units of customary meteorological usage - e.g. Pressure from Pa to hPa/mb, Temperature from K to °C.
Grib Scaling of Derived Fields
Toggles the scaling of the derived fields On / Off. "Derived fields" are considered to be any field that Metview (or command-line MARS computations) has produced as the result of a calculation. If the field you derive is in SI units, set this parameter to On to convert to meteorological style units. E.g. :
- If you retrieve two temperature fields, they will be plotted in °C if this setting is On, otherwise they will be in K. If you derive a mean temperature from them, it will be plotted in K if you do not scale the derived field.
- Precipitation fields are cumulative fields stored in m but plotted in mm - if you subtract two consecutive ones to obtain the precipitation for the time step between them, you will plot a field in m if you do not scale the derived field.