| iTool User's Guide: Working with Contours |

## Manipulating the Contour Display

The iContour tool allows you many options to manipulate your existing plot displays. Once you have visualized your contours, you may rotate, flip, translate, scale, and zoom as well as modify contour properties, scroll, and select contour ROIs. The following options are available for manipulating contours.

### Translating

Translation moves an object or group of objects in a specific direction. When an object is selected, a bounding box appears around the object. For information on translating objects, see Translation.

### View Zoom

View Zoom allows you to zoom in or out on a specific area of the contour display area. To zoom in or out in View Zoom mode click Zoom on the toolbar. For more information on working with View Zoom, see Zooming.

### Flipping a Contour

You can flip your contour within the data space either horizontally or vertically. These operations flip the actual data associated with the contour. To flip your data, select Operations Flip Flip Horizontal or Operations Flip Flip Vertical.

### Canvas Zoom

Canvas Zoom allows you to increase or decrease the magnification of the entire display canvas (which may contain multiple views, depending on the layout) by a specified percentage. Canvas Zoom is available by selecting the pull-down percentage list from the top of the tool just under the Help menu. For more information on working with Canvas Zoom, see Zooming.

### Scaling a Contour Display

The iContour tool allows you to scale your contour data by selecting Operations Transform Scale Data. You can scale your data by a factor which you provide in the Scale Factor dialog.

Figure 12-18: Setting the Contour Scale Factor

Figure 12-18: Setting the Contour Scale Factor

Once you have set the scale factor, select OK and the scaling takes place.

You may zoom in and out from your plot using either the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons on the iPlot toolbar, or by selecting Window Zoom In or Window Zoom Out.

### Adding Annotations

The following types of annotations can be added to iContour displays:

Table 12-1: Types of Contour Annotations

Table 12-1: Types of Contour Annotations
Plot Annotation Type | Description
--- | ---
Text | Single lines or multiple lines of text can be added to a visualization to provide a label or description.
Line | Straight line annotations can be added to a visualization to link labels to objects or to identify an object.
Rectangle | Rectangular annotations can be added to a visualization to identify rectangular areas.
Oval | Oval annotations can be added to a visualization to identify oval areas.
Polygon | Polygon annotations can be added to a visualization to identify areas bounded by a polygon.
Freehand | Freehand annotations can be added to a visualization to identify an area.

For more information on creating and using annotations, see Adding Annotations.

IDL Online Help (March 01, 2006)