IDL Introduction*

http://nstx.pppl.gov/nstx/Software/IDL/idl_intro.html#INTRO

Table of Contents

Introduction

A brief introduction, with links to other valuable IDL sites.

Getting started

A few basic hints that will help you get started with the command line interface and a link that will help you get idl running on your display.

Programs and batch mode

IDL can be run by typing commands interactively, by creating programs interactively, by reading programs in from files, or it can be run in batch mode.

Variables and arithmetic

Examples of setting scalar, vector, and array variables, and performing some basic operations.

Matrices

Examples of matrix operations.

Plots of Y vs. X

Plots of a function of one variable. One example also shows how to read ASCII data from a file. You can see how to fit a polynomial to data. Also included are examples with MDS access.

Surface plots

Examples of surface plots of functions of two variables. Included are examples with MDS access.

Animation

Example animation

Hardcopy

How to save your images to a postscript file.

Gotchas

Some idiosyncrasies of IDL that you should know about.

Why do my graphics get erased?

When a window gets covered, then uncovered, someone has to keep a copy of the obscured part of the image.

Other IDL Topics

How to find out more about IDL.