zMrkSize markers disappear

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I am using zMrkSize as a z-dimension for x-y data, as in:

ModifyGraph zmrkSize(myYwave)={myZwave,*,*,1,5}

I found that when the z-wave is all the same number, then the markers all disappear. When even just one of the values in the Z-wave is changed, then all the markers appear. This is somewhat non-ideal. I can imagine that all the markers take on the minimum, or the maximum, or the middle of the range, but when they disappear, it looks like there's nothing on the graph, which isn't really true.

I suppose I could come up with a kluge along the lines of:
if (wavemax (myZwave) == wavemin (myZwave))
   ModifyGraph mSize(myYwave)=1
else
   ModifyGraph zmrkSize(myYwave)={myZwave,*,*,1,5}
endif


Are there any better suggestions?

-Matthew
Quote:

ModifyGraph zmrkSize(myYwave)={myZwave,*,*,1,5}


The two stars mean that you are asking Igor to map the z wave minimum to marker size 1 and the z wave maximum to marker size 5. If the z wave minimum and maximum are the same this means that each marker must be both size 1 and size 5 which is impossible. The only solution that I know of is for you to specify fixed mapping values.

Here is an example:
Make/N=10 jack = p
Display jack
Make/N=10 myZWave = p
ModifyGraph mode=3,zmrkSize(jack)={myZWave,*,*,1,5} // Map wave min to marker size 1 and wave max to marker size 5
myZWave = 5 // Wave min == wave max so Igor can not map jack's values to the specified range
ModifyGraph mode=3,zmrkSize(jack)={myZWave,0,10,1,5}    // Map 0 to marker size 1 and 10 to marker size 5
myZWave = p

January 19, 2014 at 09:50 pm - Permalink

Thanks for the suggestion. I could put that in place of my wavemin-wavemax idea. Unfortunately, my bounds are very unpredictable from one session to another. I was actually sort of hoping to suggest that Igor arbitrarily picking the min or max or middle marker size might be an improvement over making the whole thing disappear. Igor deals with similar impossibilities in other situations, like autoscaling axes puts a single-valued wave halfway up the axis, or autoscaling greyscale of a single-valued image makes it all white (not all black or all 50% grey).

-Matthew

January 21, 2014 at 07:10 am - Permalink