Subchapters:

Plots

3 Dim plotting

There are several ways to look at 3D data, depending on the way they are stored. It could be a 3D array, or 3 vectors (x,y,z).

The slicer3 will work on 3D data, performing slices and projections. You have to save your data in a format known by slicer3. For this, use my prepare_slicer3 procedure. For example, you want to examine 2 3D arrays: data1 and data2 (must have the same size to be observed in the same slicer3).

        IDL> help,data1,data2
              DATA1           FLOAT     = Array[30, 30, 30]
              DATA2           FLOAT     = Array[30, 30, 30]
        IDL> add_path,/mo
        IDL> prepare_slicer3,'name1',data1,'data.dat'
        IDL> prepare_slicer3,'name2',data2,'data,dat',/append
        IDL> slicer3

Then go to the "file / load" button in the slicer3 window and load data.dat. Slicer3 will allow you to perform lot of actions on your 2 cubes of data. Have a look at the "about" button. Here follows an example of slices and projections.

You can also choose to represent your 3D data on a plane with colors changing according to the 3rd dimension. For this purpose, use my plotcol procedure. Here is an example of what you can do with it:

        IDL> help,dist,intens1,intens2,temp1,temp2
              DIST            DOUBLE    = Array[20, 20, 20]
              INTENS1          FLOAT     = Array[20, 20, 20]
              INTENS2         FLOAT     = Array[20, 20, 20]
              TEMP1            DOUBLE    = Array[20, 20, 20]
              TEMP2            DOUBLE    = Array[20, 20, 20]
        IDL> add_path,/mo,/es
        IDL> plotcol,dist,intens1,temp1,/scale,psym=1
        IDL> plotcol,dist,intens2,temp2,/scale,psym=4,/over

4D

If your data are in the form of 4-vectors (e.g. x,y,z,intensity), you can project them after creating a 3D array containing them:

You can also use my plot3d procedure to visualize a set of (x,y,z,intensity):

IDL> add_path,/mo
IDL> plot3d,x,y,z,intens

You can use the mouse buttons to turn your data.