[daip] Scalebar in KNTR?

[Eric Greisen]

Uwe Bach writes:

 > we regularly use AIPS to reduce and analyse VLBI data, also for
 > making images intended for publication and presentation. For this
 > purpose, it is often useful to have a scalebar indicating the pc/mas
 > scale in the map, especially when one wants to present images observed
 > at different frequencies and hence different resolutions. At present,
 > we use Xfig to add a scale bar to my images, requiring to generate an
 > Xfig project, add the image, add the scale bar with text, and to
 > export the new image. It would be nice to have the possibility to plot
 > such a scalebar directly in one of the corners of the map.
 > 
 > We wonder whether it is possible to implement such an option into
 > KNTR/CNTR/CCNTR/PCNTR? It might not be one of the urgent needs, but I
 > am convinced that it would be a welcomed convenience for many AIPS
 > users.
 > 

     The problem with such an option is descripbing it - the option
requires a character string, character size, character color plus a
line length, line type, line color, and line location.  The inputs to
these tasks are already complicated enough.  I think very few people
take full advantage of them already.

To me XFig is complicated and I would be more inclined simply to edit
extra anotation into the AIPS PostScript text file.  We deliberately
keep the style of this file as simple as possible (and even add
comments in places) to assist this.  I guess what is needed is a
postscript help file that describes the postscript commands used by
LWPLA plus giving suggestions for other functions that could be added
to annotate the files.  (I once made up an arrow macro and the next
thing I knew the user I did this for had fat white arrows overlayed by
thinner black arrows pointing out components "A", "B", etc. in a very
effective display.)

Eric Greisen