Unidata's Integrated Data Viewer > Appendix > Examples of Display Types
8.0.0 Plan Views
 Image 1: 500 hPa height contours |
 Image 2: Oblique view in 3D of colored contours of wind speed at 250 hPa |
 Image 3: Color-filled contours of surface temperature |
 Image 4: Mean sea level pressure as a color-shaded image, and contour lines |
A plan view is a horizontal display of 2D data on the map, or a horizontal
cross-section of 3D data. Conventional contour plots of data on a
map are a plan view.
Plan views can be displayed in several
ways:
- with solid or dashed contour lines
- with contour lines colored by value
- with color-filled contours
- with "color-shaded"
images (all data grid cells colored by value, which may be smoothed)
Colors help
distinguish values and subtle features, and if used carefully
can be an intuitive indication of
value and trend, such as using "hot" colors for higher or important values.
An IDV 3D Plan View can be set to any level of the data levels in the
data source, or between
data levels, in which case interpolation is used to estimate the
data values in the plan view. A colored square selector point
in the left corner of the 3D plan view
can be moved up and down by dragging the mouse button
to re-position the level.
You can make several 3D plan views at the same time, for one
or more parameters in 3D data.
To learn how to make a display, see
Getting Started: Plots from Gridded Data.
You can control the display appearance of plan views with the associated
Plan View Control
Unidata's Integrated Data Viewer > Appendix > Examples of Display Types