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IDL Basics

Description

IDL (Interactive Data Language) is a general-purpose scientific computing package which supports data manipulation, curve-fitting, triangulation, gridding, matrix manipulation, statistics, image processing and solution of systems of equations. Supported means of graphical display of data include graphing, surface plotting, contouring, volume visualization and animation. IDL uses a command-driven/programming-like interface and displays graphics using X Windows. Data input and output is simple. Graphics output can be sent to a number of devices, including: X, CGM, HP-GL, PostScript, Macintosh display and Microsoft Windows. The version of IDL currently installed on our machines is version 6.4.
Highlights: IDL is a mature packaged evolved through years of use by scientists. Runs under X Windows. If users are at all comfortable with programming, they will be able to perform calculations and produce graphics without many of the 'irrelevant' aspects of programming. Graphic output quality is pretty good and the annotation capabilities are better than some other packages.

Availability and Setup

The Interactive Data Language (IDL) is now available on the IBM p690, IBM p655 and the Linux Cluster and is currently at version 6.4.

Set things up so that you can run IDL as an X application on twister or another appropriate machine and have it display to your local machine/terminal.

Finally, to run IDL on twister, type:

twister% idl

A graphical IDL development environment is also available and can be accessed by typing:

twister% idlde

Using IDL

At the IDL prompt you can type commands like:

IDL> orig = sin((findgen(200)/35)^2.5)       
IDL> plot,orig       
IDL> exit

or run an interactive demo program

IDL> demo

Additional Help/Documentation

On-line help from within IDL: type a question mark (?) at the IDL prompt. This will open a window, providing access to all the online manuals that come with IDL. (Note that the command HELP exists but only gives information on the current IDL session and not on the commands). You can also visit the IDL Tutorial WWW Page, for an online version of an SCV IDL Tutorial.

Online PDF documentation is available. Older hardcopy IDL documentation is available in the Computer Graphics Lab (Room 203, 111 Cummington Street, lab hours and access).

For additional information on IDL on the WWW, visit the IDL home page.

Document Name: idl
Author/Maintainer: Aaron D. Fuegi (aarondf@bu.edu) and Wayne Gilmore (waygil@bu.edu)
Executable: /usr/local/bin/idl
Keywords: idl, data, analysis, visualization, language
Machines List: IBM p690, IBM p655, Linux Cluster
Related Help Pages: IDL Tutorial
Created May 22, 1995; Last Revised May 10, 2006; Last Modified 17:19 17-May-06
URL of this document: http://scv.bu.edu/documentation/software-help/mathematics/idl.html
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OIT | CCS | September 21, 2007