Plot Layout 

Sophisticated layouts are possible in Metview, with multiple plots on a single page as shown below:

To demonstrate the plot layout facility in Metview, let's re-create the above plotting:   

Your Display Window editor should look like this:

Now do the following:

Your result should look something like the plot at the start of this section.

If you look at the Frames and, more interestingly, the Layers tabs, you will see that they are linked to only one of these scenes at a time. Try using the Active scene control to change which on is used. You can also right-click on a scene and choose “Select as active scene” from the context menu.

Legend   

Legends are an important part of any scientific and operational plot. If enabled, an automatic legend will be built from the data provided.

To enable a legend, parameter Legend needs to be set to On. This parameter is available in some of the Visual Definition icons (e.g.  Contouring, Graph Plotting and Wind Plotting).

To specify how a plot's legend is displayed, Metview provides a specific icon, named Legend. It controls features such as the legend's position, style and fonts.

To demonstrate the Legend's concept, do the following:

The result shows a default legend sitting at the top of the plot. Let's move the plot legend into a column at the right of the map:

Legend Box Mode

Positional

Legend Box X Position

27.4

Legend Box Y Position

0
Legend Box X Length2
Legend Box Y Length16

Automatic legendPositional Legend

Note that the direction of the legend, by default, is computed automatically depending on the dimensions of its positional box (here, it was originally horizontal, then it became vertical). It can also be manually set.

Annotation View   

The Annotation View icon provides a container for user-defined text boxes. This View can also be used for layout purposes - if no user text is defined then an empty box will be created in the Display Window / paper sheet.

The user-defined text is provided by means of a Text Plotting  icon.    

Text Line 1

Metview Training Course

Text Mode

Positional

Text Box X Position

10

Text Box Y Position

10

Text Box X Length

5

Text Box Y Length5

Multiple Text Plotting icons can be placed in this View:

Extra work

Create an A3 plot, projection Mollweide

Customise the size of the drawing area

The exercise given in the Legend section above has a hidden feature related to the value 27.4 assigned to parameter Legend X Box Position in the icon legmap. This value was carefully chosen to allow the legend box to cover completely the latitude labels on the right hand side of the map. Change this value to 27, for instance, and check the result. One possible solution to avoid this issue is to reduce the width of the mapping area; thus, giving more space to draw the legend box.

Redo the Legend section's exercise by reducing the width of the mapping area. The mapping area is known as the subpage.

Re-create the following plot:

 

Choose one of the given GRIB files.

Build the equivalent Macro program.

5 Profiles

Create a layout with 5 Vertical Profile views, each showing a profile for a different location. Arrange the views any way you wish.