QUESTIONSFEEDBACKHOMEEmploymentEventsLinksPeoplePublicationsSupportWelcome

Introduction to IDL

Key Features

• Analyze any data from any source with flexible data I/O.
• Visualize your data using the hardware accelerated 2D and 3D graphics of OpenGL.
• Take advantage of image processing features such as region of interest (ROI) functionality and a suite of image analysis routines.
• Create leading-edge solutions using IDL's object-oriented graphics technology.
• Crunch numbers quickly with integrated mathematics and statistics.
• Apply wavelet analysis to your data and images with the IDL Wavelet Toolkit.
• A script of the IDL session can be saved and edited.

Note: Research Systems is no longer able to support reading and writing GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) images or LZW (Lempel-Zif-Welch) compression for TIFF images. The LZW technology has been patented by the Unisys Corporation. Note that any users of GIF/LZW technology are required to enter into a license agreement with Unisys Corporation.

The sections included in this tutorial provide a hands-on way to learn basic IDL concepts and techniques. We demonstrates a number of common IDL applications: reading and writing data, 2-D plotting, signal processing, surface and contour plotting, image processing, volume visualization, mapping, plotting irregularly-gridded data, animation, programming in IDL, manipulating data, and IDL Toolkits. Each section introduces basic IDL concepts and highlights some of the commonly used IDL commands.

You don't have to read all of the descriptive passages that accompany each section. Simply enter the IDL commands shown in bold type at the IDL Command Line (the IDL> prompt) and observe the results. Unless otherwise noted, each line shown is a complete IDL command (press RETURN after typing each command). If you want more information about a specific command, you can read the explanations in the reference books.

Each section is a demonstration of a particular IDL feature.We recommend that you walk through each short, interactive section to preserve continuity, since many commands rely upon previous commands. Each section assumes the most basic level of IDL experience.

• The Development Environment
• Reading and Writing Data
• 2-D Plotting
• Signal Processing
• Image Processing
• Surface and Contour Plotting
• Volume Visualization
• Mapping
• Plotting Irregularly-Gridded Data
• Animation