Setting the sphere position and orientation


The routine sphinit is used to set the sphere position and orientation.

sphinit works in data coordinates, so before calling it make sure a coordinate system is setup.

This routine has a number of options. The built in help for this routine is obtained by sphinit, /help and is listed below:
 Initialize sphere drawing package.
 sphinit
 Keywords:
   --- Set values:
   LONG = central longitude (East is +, def=0).
   LAT = central latitude (def=0).
   PA = position angle of north pole (def=0).
   X = X position of sphere center (def=0).
   Y = Y position of sphere center (def=0).
   INC = angle increment (def=1).
   VPA = Position angle of visible hemisphere center (def=0).
   VAZ = Line of sight ang. of vis. hemisphere center (def=0).
   VIS_STYLE = def linestyle for sphere visible part (def=0).
   HID_STYLE = def linestyle for sphere hidden part (def=1).
   --- Actions:
   /LIST  list values.
   /FRONT set visible hemisphere to front of sphere.
   /TOP   set visible hemisphere to top of sphere.
   /DEVICE  work in device coordinates.
   RADIUS = r.  Plot outline of radius r.
   COLOR = c.  Outline plot color.
   FILL = f. Fill color for inside radius (def = no fill).
   LINESTYLE = s.  Outline linestyle.
   THICK = t.  Outline plot thickness.

Some example orientations

In the following examples parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude are drawn to show the sphere orientation. A later section explains how to draw these lines. These lines were not done by sphinit.

sphinit gives:

sphinit, long=-30, lat=40 gives:

The last example has a minor problem. The sphere is not outlined and for this orientation breaks detract from the figure. sphinit will draw an outline if given the radius by the the keyword radius. The interior of the sphere may also be filled by a given color using the keyword fill. The sphere may also be tilted away from straight up using the keyword pa to control the position angle of the north pole. Using these three keywords together:
sphinit, long=-30, lat=40, rad=1, fill=40, pa=30 gives:

Other keywords are available in sphinit, see the built in help.

sphinit may be called any number of times to orient the spherical coordinate system in various ways. Each keyword value stays in effect until a new value is specified, so it is not necessary to give all the keywords on every call, just the ones to change.

The current values in effect for the drawing routines may be listed by the call:
sphinit,/list


Drawing Latitude, Longitude, and Radial lines
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