NAME

      pscoast - To plot land-masses, water-masses, coastlines, borders, and
      rivers


SYNOPSIS

      pscoast -Jparameters -Rwest/east/south/north[r] [
      -Amin_area[min_level//max_level] ] [ -Btickinfo ] [ -Cfill ] [
      -Dresolution ] [ -Eazimuth/elevation ] [ -Gfill ] [ -Iriver[/pen] ] [
      -K ] [ -L[f][x]lon0/lat0/slat/length[m|n] ] [ -M[flag] ] [
      -Nborder[/pen] ] [ -O ] [ -P ] [ -Q ] [ -Sfill ] [ -U[/dx/dy/][label] ]
      [ -V ] [ -Wpen ] [ -Xx-shift ] [ -Yy-shift ] [ -ccopies ]


DESCRIPTION

      pscoast plots grayshaded, colored, or textured land-masses [or water-
      masses] on maps and [optionally] draws coastlines, rivers, and
      political boundaries.  Alternatively, it can (1) issue clip paths that
      will contain all land or all water areas, or (2) dump the data to an
      ASCII table.  The datafiles come in 5 different resolutions: (f)ull,
      (h)igh, (i)ntermediate, (l)ow, and (c)rude.  The full resolution files
      amount to more than 55 Mb of data and provide great detail; for maps
      of larger geographical extent it is more economical to use one of the
      other resolutions.  If the user selects to paint the land-areas and
      does not specify fill of water-areas then the latter will be
      transparent (i.e., earlier graphics drawn in those areas will not be
      overwritten).  Likewise, if the water-areas are painted and no land
      fill is set then the land-areas will be transparent.  The PostScript
      code is written to standard output.
           No space between the option flag and the associated arguments.
      Use upper case for the option flags and lower case for modifiers.

      -J   Selects the map projection. Scale is inch/degree, 1:xxxxx, or
           width in inch (upper case modifier).

           CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS:

           -Jclon0/lat0/scale (Cassini)
           -Jjlon0/scale (Miller)
           -Jmscale (Mercator - Greenwich and Equator as origin)
           -Jmlon0/lat0/scale (Mercator - Give meridian and standard
           parallel)
           -Joalon0/lat0/azimuth/scale (Oblique Mercator - point and
           azimuth)
           -Joblon0/lat0/lon1/lat1/scale (Oblique Mercator - two points)
           -Joclon0/lat0/lonp/latp/scale (Oblique Mercator - point and pole)
           -Jqlon0/scale (Equidistant Cylindrical Projection (Plate Carree))
           -Jtlon0/scale (TM - Transverse Mercator)
           -Juzone/scale (UTM - Universal Transverse Mercator)
           -Jylon0/lats/scale (Basic Cylindrical Projection)

           AZIMUTHAL PROJECTIONS:

           -Jalon0/lat0/scale (Lambert).
           -Jelon0/lat0/scale (Equidistant).
           -Jflon0/lat0/horizon/scale (Gnomonic).
           -Jglon0/lat0/scale (Orthographic).
           -Jslon0/lat0/scale (General Stereographic)

           CONIC PROJECTIONS:

           -Jblon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Albers)
           -Jllon0/lat0/lat1/lat2/scale (Lambert)

           MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTIONS:

           -Jhlon0/scale (Hammer)
           -Jilon0/scale (Sinusoidal)
           -Jklon0/scale (Eckert VI)
           -Jnlon0/scale (Robinson)
           -Jrlon0/scale (Winkel Tripel)
           -Jwlon0/scale (Mollweide)

           NON-GEOGRAPHICAL PROJECTIONS:

           -Jpscale (Linear projection for polar (theta,r) coordinates)
           -Jxx-scale[l|ppow][/y-scale[l|ppow]] (Linear, log, and power
           scaling)
           More details can be found in the psbasemap manpages.

      -R   west, east, south, and north specify the Region of interest.  To
           specify boundaries in degrees and minutes [and seconds], use the
           dd:mm[:ss] format.  Append r if lower left and upper right map
           coordinates are given instead of wesn.


OPTIONS

      -A   Features with an area smaller than min_area in km^2 or of
           hierarchical level that is lower than min_level or higher than
           max_level will not be plotted [Default is 0/4 (all features)].
           See DATABASE INFORMATION below for more details.

      -B   Sets map boundary tickmark intervals. See psbasemap for details.

      -C   Set the shade (0-255), color (r/g/b), or pattern (p|Pdpi/pattern;
           see -G) for lakes  [Default is the fill chosen for "wet" areas
           (-S)].

      -D   Selects the resolution of the data set to use ((f)ull, (h)igh,
           (i)ntermediate, (l)ow, and (c)rude).  The resolution drops off by
           80% between data sets. [Default is l].

      -E   Sets the viewpoint's azimuth and elevation (for perspective view)
           [180/90]

      -G   Select painting or clipping of "dry" areas.  Append a shade,
           color, pattern, or c for clipping.  Specify the shade (0-255) or
           color (r/g/b), or -Gpdpi/pattern, where pattern gives the number
           of the built-in pattern (1-90) OR the name of a Sun 1-, 8-, or
           24-bit raster file.  dpi sets the resolution of the image.  For
           1-bit rasters: use -GP for inverse video, or append
           :Fr/g/b[B[r/g/b]] to specify fore- and background colors.  See
           GMT Cookbook & Technical Reference Appendix E for information on
           individual patterns.

      -I   Draw rivers.  Specify the type of rivers and [optionally] append
           pen attributes  [Default pen: width = 1, color = 0/0/0, texture =
           solid].  Choose from the list of river types below.  Repeat
           option -I as often as necessary.
                 1 = Permanent major rivers
                 2 = Additional major rivers
                 3 = Additional rivers
                 4 = Minor rivers
                 5 = Intermittent rivers - major
                 6 = Intermittent rivers - additional
                 7 = Intermittent rivers - minor
                 8 = Major canals
                 9 = Minor canals
                10 = Irrigation canals
                 a = All rivers and canals (1-10)
                 r = All permanent rivers (1-4)
                 i = All intermittent rivers (5-7)
                 c = All canals (8-10)

      -K   More PostScript code will be appended later [Default terminates
           the plot system].

      -L   Draws a simple map scale centered on lon0/lat0.  Use -Lx to
           specify position in inch instead.  Scale is calculated at
           latitude slat, length is in km [miles if m is appended; nautical
           miles if n is appended].  Use -Lf to get a "fancy" scale [Default
           is plain].

      -M   Dumps a single multisegment ASCII file to standard output.  No
           plotting occurs.  Specify any combination of -W, -I, -N.
           Optionally, you may append the flag character that is written at
           the start of each segment header ['>'].

      -N   Draw political boundaries.  Specify the type of boundary and
           [optionally] append pen attributes  [Default pen: width = 1,
           color = 0/0/0, texture = solid].  Choose from the list of
           boundaries below.  Repeat option -N as often as necessary.
                1 = National boundaries
                2 = State boundaries within the Americas
                3 = Marine boundaries
                a = All boundaries (1-3)

      -O   Selects Overlay plot mode [Default initializes a new plot
           system].

      -P   Selects Portrait plotting mode [GMT Default is Landscape, see
           gmtdefaults to change this].

      -Q   Mark end of existing clip path.  No projection information is
           needed.

      -S   Select painting or clipping of "wet" areas.  Append the shade
           (0-255), color (r/g/b), pattern (see -G), or c for clipping.

      -U   Draw Unix System time stamp on plot.  User may specify where the
           lower left corner of the stamp should fall on the page relative
           to lower left corner of plot in inch [Default is (-0.75i/-
           0.75i)].  Optionally, append a label, or c (which will plot the
           command string.)

      -V   Selects verbose mode, which will send progress reports to stderr
           [Default runs "silently"].

      -W   Draw coastlines. [Default is no coastlines].  Append pen
           attributes  [Defaults: width = 1, color = 0/0/0, texture =
           solid].

      -X -Y
           Shift origin of plot by (x-shift,y-shift) inch  [Default is
           (a1i,a1i) for new plots, (0,0) for overlays].  Prepend a for
           absolute coordinates; the default (r) will reset plot origin.

      -c   Specifies the number of plot copies. [Default is 1]


EXAMPLES

      To plot a green Africa with white outline on blue background, with
      permanent major rivers in thick blue pen, additional major rivers in
      thin blue pen, and national borders as dashed lines on a Mercator map
      at scale 0.1 inch/degree, try

      pscoast -R-30/30/-40/40 -Jm0.1i -B5 -I1/1p/0/0/255 -I2/0.25p/0/0/255
      -N1/0.25tap -W0.25p/255/255/255 -G0/255/0 -S0/0/255 -P > africa.ps

      To plot Iceland using the lava pattern (# 28), unit size 0.5 inch, on
      a Mercator map at scale 0.4 inch/degree, try

      pscoast -R-30/-10/60/65 -Jm0.4i -B5 -Gp0.5/28 > iceland.ps

      To initiate a clip path for Africa so that the subsequent colorimage
      of gridded topography is only seen over land, using a Mercator map at
      scale 0.1 inch/degree, try

      pscoast -R-30/30/-40/40 -Jm0.1i -B5 -Gc -P -K > africa.ps
      grdimage -Jm0.1i etopo5.grd -Ccolors.cpt -O -K >> africa.ps
      pscoast -Q -O >> africa.ps


DATABASE INFORMATION

      The coastline database is compiled from two sources: World Vector
      Shorelines (WVS) and CIA World Data Bank II (WDBII).  In particular,
      all level-1 polygons (ocean-land boundary) are derived from the more
      accurate WVS while all higher level polygons (level 2-4, representing
      land/lake, lake/island-in-lake, and island-in-lake/lake-in-island-in-
      lake boundaries) are taken from WDBII.  Much processing has taken
      place to convert WVS and WDBII data into usable form for GMT:
      assembling closed polygons from line segments, checking for
      duplicates, and correcting for crossings between polygons.  The area
      of each polygon has been determined so that the user may choose not to
      draw features smaller than a minimum area (see -A); one may also limit
      the highest hierarchical level of polygons to be included (4 is the
      maximum).  The 4 lower-resolution databases were derived from the full
      resolution database using the Douglas-Peucker line-simplification
      algorithm.  The classification of rivers and borders follow that of
      the WDBII.  See the GMT Cookbook and Technical Reference Appendix K
      for further details.


BUGS

      The options to fill (-C -G -S) may not always work if the Azimuthal
      equidistant projection is chosen (-Je|E).  If the antipole of the
      projection is in the oceans it will most likely work.  If not, try to
      avoid using projection center coordinates that are even multiples of
      the coastline bin size (1, 2, 5, 10, and 20 degrees for f, h, i, l, c,
      respectively).  This projection is not supported for clipping.
      The political borders are for the most part 1970ies-style and do not
      reflect the recent border rearrangments in Europe.  We intend to
      update these as high-resolution data become avaiable to us.
      Some users of pscoast will not be satisfied with what they find for
      the Antarctic shoreline.  In Antarctica, the boundary between ice and
      ocean varies seasonally and interannually.  There are some areas of
      permanent sea ice.  In addition to these time-varying ice-ocean
      boundaries, there are also ice grounding lines where ice goes from
      floating on the sea to sitting on land, and lines delimiting areas of
      rock outcrop.  For consistency's sake, we have used the World Vector
      Shoreline throughout the world in pscoast, as described in the GMT
      cookbook Appendix K. Users who need specific boundaries in Antarctica
      should get the Antarctic Digital Database, prepared by the British
      Antarctic Survey, Scott Polar Research Institute, World Conservation
      Monitoring Centre, under the auspices of the Scientific Committee on
      Antarctic Research.  This data base contains various kinds of limiting
      lines for Antarctica and is available on CD-ROM.  It is published by
      the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, Scott Polar Research
      Institute, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1ER, United Kingdom.


SEE ALSO

      gmtdefaults, gmt, grdlandmask, psbasemap

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