SET/GRAPHIC and SHOW/GRAPHIC

SET/GRAPHIC plays an important role in the plot package. This command gives the user control over the plot size, line types ( LTYPE) , line thickness ( LWIDTH) , symbol type ( STYPE)  and size ( SSIZE) , etc. In Table the various options that can be set with the SET/GRAPH command are listed, together with the default settings. Below we briefly discuss some of the options. More extended documentation can be found in the help file of the SET/GRAPHIC command.

By default, all data points in frames, keywords and descriptors are connected with a line; data points in tables are plotted individually. This setting can be changed with the LTYPE and STYPE options in SET/GRAPH. Normally, when plotting data points in a frame, descriptor, or keyword, the plot package first looks for the line type. If the line type is set to 0 ( LTYPE=0) it looks for the symbol ( STYPE). If both LTYPE and STYPE are found to be 0 a fatal error occurs.

In case of table plotting the package first looks for the symbol type. When STYPE=0 a line will be drawn corresponding to LTYPE. An error occurs if both LTYPE and STYPE are 0. For histogram plotting or when the bin mode  @ BINis on ( BIN=ON), the package needs a line type greater than zero; an error occurs when LTYPE=0. Table data can not be plotted with BIN=ON.

By default, before a PLOT command is executed the graphics window is erased. To switch off the erase, you can use the option CLEARGRA=OFF. By doing so, subsequently issued plot commands will run in overplot mode: the screen content is kept. Hence, by issuing a number of PLOT commands you can easily produce several plots on one screen (page). To help you more in designing the layout of your plot scales  (and sizes)   as well as the position on the screen (paper) can be pre-defined by XSCALE  and YSCALE , and XOFFSET  and YOFFSET .

The default font used by MIDAS is a simple one but is plotted fast. More fonts are available to enable you to obtain publication quality graphics output. With the command SET/GRAPHIC FONT=n , where n is larger than 0, you can use a different (nicer) font than the default one. Currently, the following font sets are available:

To display these fonts and the associated character and symbol sets you can run the tutorial TUTORIAL/GRAPH GENERAL.

  
Table: SET/GRAPHIC Options

If a colour postscript printer is at your disposal you may use the colour setting options COLOUR=n  and BCOLOUR=n .

In the SET/GRAPH command defaults for single parameters can be (re)set by: SET/GRAPH par_name=value. The reinitialization of all plot parameters can be done by: SET/GRAPHIC or SET/GRAPHIC DEF.