NAME
gmtdefaults - To list current GMT defaults
SYNOPSIS
gmtdefaults -D
DESCRIPTION
gmtdefaults lists the GMT parameter defaults if the option -
D is used. To change some of the settings, use any textedi-
tor to edit the file .gmtdefaults in your home or current
directory. If you do not have this file in your home or
current directory, run gmtdefaults -D > ~/.gmtdefaults to
get the system settings.
-D Print the GMT defaults to standard output.
GMT PARAMETERS
The following is a list of the 55 parameters that are user-
definable in GMT. The system defaults are given in brackets
[ ]. Those marked * can be set on the command line as well
(the corresponding option is given in parentheses). Note
that distances and lengths are given in inch.
ANOT_MIN_ANGLE
If the angle between the map boundary and the annota-
tion baseline is less than this minimum value (in
degrees), the annotation is not plotted (this may occur
for certain oblique projections.) [20]
ANOT_FONT
Font used for tick mark annotations etc [Helvetica].
Specify either the font number or the font name. The
34 available fonts are:
0 Helvetica
1 Helvetica-Bold
2 Helvetica-Oblique
3 Helvetica-BoldOblique
4 Times-Roman
5 Times-Bold
6 Times-Italic
7 Times-BoldItalic
8 Courier
9 Courier-Bold
10 Courier-Oblique
11 Courier-BoldOblique
12 Symbol
13 AvantGarde-Book
14 AvantGarde-BookOblique
15 AvantGarde-Demi
16 AvantGarde-DemiOblique
17 Bookman-Demi
18 Bookman-DemiItalic
19 Bookman-Light
20 Bookman-LightItalic
21 Helvetica-Narrow
22 Helvetica-Narrow-Bold
23 Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique
24 Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique
25 NewCenturySchlbk-Roman
26 NewCenturySchlbk-Italic
27 NewCenturySchlbk-Bold
28 NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic
29 Palatino-Roman
30 Palatino-Italic
31 Palatino-Bold
32 Palatino-BoldItalic
33 ZapfChancery-MediumItalic
ANOT_FONT_SIZE
Font size in points for map annotations. [14]
ANOT_OFFSET
Distance from end of tickmark to start of annotation
[0.075 inch].
BASEMAP_AXES
Sets which axes to draw and annotate. Upper case means
both draw and annotate, lower case means draw axis
only. [WESN].
BASEMAP_FRAME_RGB
Color used to draw map boundaries and annotations
[0/0/0].
BASEMAP_TYPE
Choose between PLAIN and FANCY (thick boundary, alter-
nating black/white frame) [FANCY]. For some map pro-
jections (e.g., Oblique Mercator), PLAIN is the only
option even if FANCY is set as default.
COLOR_BACKGROUND
Color used for the background of images (i.e., when z <
lowest colortable entry) [0/0/0].
COLOR_FOREGROUND
Color used for the foreground of images (i.e., when z >
highest colortable entry) [255/255/255].
COLOR_IMAGE
Selects which operator to use when rendering bit-mapped
color images. Due to the many definitions of the
colorimage operator, GMT offers 3 different implementa-
tions:
ADOBE (Adobe's colorimage definition) [Default].
TILES (Plot image as many individual rectangles).
SEPARATION (Use 3 image calls for color separa-
tion).
The last method is only to be used to produce
PostScript files for processing with the psto24 appli-
cation; if submitted to other interpreters the job may
crash. It is only intended as a way to create 24bit
rasterimages from PostScript on Sun 8bit workstations.
COLOR_MODEL
Selects if color palette files contain RGB values
(r,g,b in 0-255 range) or HSV values (h = 0-360, s,v in
0-1 range) [RGB].
COLOR_NAN
Color used for the non-defined areas of images (i.e.,
where z == NaN) [128/128/128].
D_FORMAT
Output format (C language syntax) to be used when
printing double precision floating point numbers
[%lg].
DEGREE_FORMAT
Output format to be used when annotating map boun-
daries. Choose between six formats:
0 Longitudes go from 0 to 360, latitudes from
-90 to 90 [Default].
1 Longitudes go from -180 to 180, latitudes
from -90 to 90.
2 Longitudes are unsigned 0 to 180, latitudes
unsigned 0 to 90.
3 Same as 2, but with letters W, E, S, or N
appended as appropriate.
4 Same as 0, but using decimal degrees instead
of degrees, minutes, and seconds.
5 Same as 1, but using decimal degrees instead
of degrees, minutes, and seconds.
DOTS_PR_INCH
Resolution of the plotting device (DPI). Note that in
order to be as compact as possible, GMT PostScript out-
put uses integer formats only so the resolution should
be set depending on what output device you are using.
E.g, using 300 and sending the output to a Linotype 300
phototypesetter (2470 DPI) will not take advantage of
the extra resolution (i.e., positioning on the page and
line thicknesses are still only done in steps of 1/300
inch; of course, text will look smoother) [300].
ELLIPSOID
The name of the ellipsoid used for the map projections
[WGS-84]. Choose between
WGS-84 1984 World Geodetic System
GRS-80 1980 International Geodetic Reference
System
WGS-72 1972 World Geodetic System
Australian 1965 Used down under
Krasovsky 1940 Used in the Soviet Union
International 1924 Worldwide use
Hayford-1909 1909 Same as the International 1924
Clarke-1880 1880 Most of Africa, France
Clarke-1866 1866 North America, the Phillipines
Airy 1830 Great Britain
Bessel 1841 Central Europe, Chile, Indonesia
Everest 1830 India, Burma, Pakistan, Afghanis-
tan, Thailand, etc.
Sphere 1980 The mean radius in GRS-80 (for
spherical/plate tectonics applications)
Note that for some global projections, GMT may default
to GRS-80 Sphere regardless of ellipsoid actually
chosen. A warning will be given when this happens. If
a different ellipsoid name than the ones mentioned here
is given, GMT will attempt to open this name as a file
and read the ellipsoid name, date, major axis (in m),
minor axis (in m), and flattening from the first
record, where the fields must be separated by white-
space (not commas). This way a custom ellipsoid (e.g.,
those used for other planets) may be used.
FRAME_PEN
Thickness of pen used to draw PLAIN map frame in DPI
units or points (append p) [5].
FRAME_WIDTH
Width of map borders for FANCY map frame [0.075 inch].
GLOBAL_X_SCALE
Global x-scale to apply to plot-coordinates before
plotting. Normally used to shrink the entire output
down to fit a specific height/width [1.0].
GLOBAL_Y_SCALE
Same, but for y-coordinates [1.0].
GRID_CROSS_SIZE
Size of grid cross at lon-lat intersections. 0 means
draw continuous gridlines instead [0 inch].
GRID_PEN
Pen thickness used to draw grid lines in DPI units or
points (append p) [1].
GRIDFILE_SHORTHAND
If TRUE, all gridfile names are examined to see if they
use the file extension shorthand discussed in Section
4.16. If FALSE, no filename expansion is done [FALSE].
HEADER_FONT
Font to use when plotting headers. See ANOT_FONT for
available fonts [Helvetica].
HEADER_FONT_SIZE
Font size for header in points [36].
HSV_MIN_SATURATION
Minimum saturation assigned for most negative intensity
value [1.0].
HSV_MAX_SATURATION
Maximum saturation assigned for most positive intensity
value [0.1].
HSV_MIN_VALUE
Minimum value assigned for most negative intensity
value [0.3].
HSV_MAX_VALUE
Maximum value assigned for most positive intensity
value [1.0].
INTERPOLANT
Determines if linear (0), Akima's spline (1), or
natural cubic spline (2) should be used for 1-D inter-
polations in various programs [1].
IO_HEADER * (-H)
Specifies whether input/output ASCII files have header
record(s) or not [FALSE].
N_HEADER_RECS
Specifies how many header records to expect if - H is
turned on [1].
LABEL_FONT
Font to use when plotting labels below axes. See
ANOT_FONT for available fonts [Helvetica].
LABEL_FONT_SIZE
Font size for labels in points [24].
LINE_STEP
Determines the maximum length of individual straight
line-segments when drawing arcuate lines [0.1 inch]
MAP_SCALE_FACTOR
Sets the central scale factor used for the Polar Stere-
ographic and Transverse Mercator projections. Typi-
cally, it is set to 0.9996 to minimize areal distortion
[0.9996].
MEASURE_UNIT
Sets the unit length. Choose between cm, inch, and m.
[inch].
N_COPIES * (-c)
Number of plot copies to make [1].
OBLIQUE_ANOTATION
This option only applies to oblique projections. If
set to 0, longitudes will be annotated on the lower and
upper boundaries only, and latitudes will be annotated
on the left and right boundaries only. 1 plots annota-
tions wherever a gridline crosses the map boundaries
[1].
PAGE_COLOR
Sets the color of the imaging background, i.e., the
paper [255/255/255].
PAGE_ORIENTATION * (-P)
Sets the orientation of the page. Choose PORTRAIT or
LANDSCAPE [LANDSCAPE].
PAPER_WIDTH
Sets the physical width of the current plot paper [8.5
inch].
PSIMAGE_FORMAT
Determines whether images created in PostScript should
use hexadecimal (ascii) or binary format. The latter
takes up only half as much space and executes faster
but may choke some printers, especially those off
serial ports. Select HEX or BIN [HEX].
TICK_LENGTH
The length of a tickmark. Normally, tickmarks are
drawn on the outside of the map boundaries. To select
interior tickmarks, use a negative tick_length [0.075
inch].
TICK_PEN
The pen thickness to be used for tickmarks in DPI units
or points (append p) [2].
UNIX_TIME * (-U)
Specifies if a UNIX system time stamp should be plotted
at the lower left corner of the plot [FALSE].
UNIX_TIME_POS * (-U)
Sets the position of the UNIX time stamp relative to
the current plots lower left corner [-0.75/-0.75].
VECTOR_SHAPE
Determines the shape of the head of a vector. Nor-
mally (i.e., for vector_shape = 0.0), the head will be
triangular, but can be changed to an arrow (1.0).
Intermediate settings gives something in between [0].
VERBOSE * (-V)
Determines if GMT programs should display run-time
information or run silently.
WANT_EURO_FONT
Determines if GMT PostScript output should include font
re-encoding for accented European characters. See
Cookbook section 4.15 and Appendix H for details
[FALSE].
X_AXIS_LENGTH
Sets the default length of the x-axis [9 inch].
Y_AXIS_LENGTH
Sets the default length of the y-axis [6 inch].
X_ORIGIN * (-X)
Sets the x-coordinate of the origin on the paper for a
new plot [1 inch]. For an overlay, the default offset
is 0.
Y_ORIGIN * (-Y)
Sets the y-coordinate of the origin on the paper for a
new plot [1 inch]. For an overlay, the default offset
is 0.
XY_TOGGLE * (-:)
Set if the first two columns of input files contain
(latitude,longitude) or (y,x) rather than the expected
(longitude,latitude) or (x,y) [FALSE].
Y_AXIS_TYPE
Determines if the annotations for a y-axis (for linear
projections) should be plotted horizontally or verti-
cally [Horizontally].
EXAMPLES
To get a copy of the GMT parameter defaults in your home
directory, run
gmtdefaults -D > ~/.gmtdefaults
You may now change the settings by editing this file using a
text editor of your choice, or use gmtset to change speci-
fied parameters on the command line.
BUGS
If you have typographical errors in your .gmtdefaults
file(s), a warning message will be issued, and the GMT
defaults for the affected parameters will be used.
SEE ALSO
gmt, gmtset
REFERENCES
Wessel, P., and W. H. F. Smith, 1995, The Generic Mapping
Tools (GMT) version 3.0 Technical Reference & Cookbook,
SOEST/NOAA.
Wessel, P., and W. H. F. Smith, 1995, New Version of the
Generic Mapping Tools Released, EOS Trans. AGU, 76, p. 329.
Wessel, P., and W. H. F. Smith, 1995, New Version of the
Generic Mapping Tools Released,
http://www.agu.org/eos_elec/95154e.html, Copyright 1995 by
the American Geophysical Union.
Wessel, P., and W. H. F. Smith, 1991, Free Software Helps
Map and Display Data, EOS Trans. AGU, 72, p. 441.