Script: Set_parea; a simple way to set up multiple plots on one page in GrADS

Setting page areas can be some what frustrating and time consuming, especially when you want to plot more than 1 or 2 windows on the page.  This script provides a simple way to set your plot area to fit into a user-specified grid of plots.

It is called, by providing the script with the total number of rows and columns, as well as the specified row/column for your chosen plot.  You can access a short help page by calling without the proper variables.

Example useage: 'set_parea 3 5 2 3'

This example, will set the page area to be the center of a 3x5 grid, row 2 column 3.

Options:   -margin (-m): sets margins from the page edges and in between each plot.
                  -show (-s): clears the screen and plots/labels all page areas.


An example of the -show option is shown below:

      'set_parea 4 5 2 3 -m 0.3 -s'

Example using -show option in set_parea.gs

One potential use for this script would be to plot model output variables at all time steps on one plot.  An example script to do this is shown below, and plots 18 time steps from the RAP model.

    'sdfopen http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov:9090/dods/rap/rap20130507/rap_00z'

    'set lat 22 50'
    'set lon -125 -68'
    'set gxout shaded'
    'set mpdset hires'
    'set display color white'
    'clear'
    'set xlab off'
    'set ylab off'

    rows=4
    cols=5

    t=1
    i=1
    j=1

    while(t<=18)

      'set t 't
      if(j>cols);i=i+1;j=1;endif

      'set_parea 'rows' 'cols' 'i' 'j' -m 0.3'
      'color 5 75 5 -kind white->dodgerblue->blue->lime->green->darkgreen->yellow->goldenrod->orange->firebrick->red->darkred->fuchsia->indigo'
      'd refcclm'
      'draw title Time: 't

      j=j+1
      t=t+1
    endwhile

Resultant Image:

I have found this script very useful, and it greatly simplifies setting different page areas in GrADS.

Download set_parea.gs 

Download RAP Example Script