Custom Lines

Once you have created a 1D or 2D scalar contour plot (see Producing a 1D Scalar Plot and Producing a 2D Scalar Plot), the Custom Lines options are available for varying contour attributes. To locate the Custom Lines Menu, click on "Custom Lines" in the IVE Main Window (see figure below).

The Custom Lines Menu contains the following options: Color, Pattern, and Width.

• Color: The Color option allows you to select the colors of lines in the plot. Clicking on "Color" with the left mouse button activates a submenu containing the choices Both, Pos, Neg, and Default. Each of these choices is attached to a small color menu as depicted below:

Selecting a color from Pos causes all positive contours in the plot to change to that color. Similarly, choosing a color from Neg changes all negative contours. If you want both positive and negative contours to be the same color, select a color from Both. Clicking on Default returns all plots to their default settings.

• Pattern: The Pattern option contains the same submenu as Color. However, Pattern enables you to select line patterns instead of colors. The following patterns are available: Solid, Dash, Dot, DashDot, DashDotDot, LongDashShort, and LongDash (see image below):

As in the Color option, Pos affects positive contours, Neg affects negative contours, and Both affects both positive and negative contours. Therefore, to select a contour pattern, simply decide if you want to change positive contours, negative contours, or both. Then click on the appropriate box and select the pattern type. For example, to create a plot containing long-dashed positive contours and dotted negative contours, you would select "LongDash" from Pos and "Dot" from Neg. The Default option resets line patterns to the default, where positive contours are "Solid" and negative values are "Dash".

• Width: The final Custom Lines option is Width. This choice varies the width of both positive and negative contours simultaneously. Clicking on Width opens a submenu containing the choices Normal, Thick, and Thickest (See figure).

Normal is the default width setting and produces the thinnest contours. If you desire thicker contours, Thick and Thickest can be selected to vary the width of your contours accordingly.

Once you have altered the Custom Lines settings, the changes do not take affect until a new plot is created (see PLOT).