NAME
gmtdefaults - To list current GMT defaults
SYNOPSIS
gmtdefaults -D[u|s] | -L
DESCRIPTION
gmtdefaults lists the GMT parameter defaults if the option
-D is used. To change some of the settings, use any texted-
itor 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. GMT can provide default values in
US or SI units. This choice is determined by the contents
of the gmt.conf file in GMT's share directory.
-D Print the system GMT defaults to standard output.
Append u for US defaults or s for SI defaults. [-D
alone gives current choice in gmt.conf].
-L Print the user's currently active defaults to standard
output.
GMT PARAMETERS
The following is a list of the 57 parameters that are user-
definable in GMT. The parameter names are always given in
UPPER CASE. The parameter values are case-insensitive
unless otherwise noted. 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 default distances and lengths below are given in
both cm or inch; the chosen default depends on your choice
of default unit (see MEASURE_UNIT). You can explicitly
specify the unit used for distances and lengths by appending
c (cm), i (inch), m (meter), or p {points). When no unit is
indicated the value will be assumed to be in the unit set by
MEASURE_UNIT. Note that the printer resolution DOTS_PR_INCH
is always the number of dots or pixels per inch. Several
parameters take only TRUE or FALSE.
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.) Give a value in the
range 0-90. [20]
ANOT_FONT
Font used for tick mark annotations etc [Helvetica].
Specify either the font number or the font name (case
sensitive!). The 39 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
34 ZapfDingbats
35 Ryumin-Light-EUC-H
36 Ryumin-Light-EUC-V
37 GothicBBB-Medium-EUC-H
38 GothicBBB-Medium-EUC-V
ANOT_FONT_SIZE
Font size (> 0) in points for map annotations. [14]
ANOT_OFFSET
Distance from end of tickmark to start of annotation
[0.2c (or 0.075i)]. A negative offset will place the
anotation inside the map border.
BASEMAP_AXES
Sets which axes to draw and annotate. Case sensitive:
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.
Give a red/green/blue triplet, with each element in the
0-255 range. [0/0/0] (black).
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). Give a red/green/blue tri-
plet, with each element in the 0-255 range. [0/0/0]
(black)
COLOR_FOREGROUND
Color used for the foreground of images (i.e., when z >
highest colortable entry). Give a red/green/blue tri-
plet, with each element in the 0-255 range.
[255/255/255] (write)
COLOR_IMAGE
Selects which operator to use when rendering bit-mapped
color images. Due to the lack of the colorimage opera-
tor in some PostScript implementations, GMT offers 2
different options:
adobe (Adobe's colorimage definition) [Default].
tiles (Plot image as many individual rectangles).
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). Give a red/green/blue triplet, with
each element in the 0-255 range. [128/128/128] (gray)
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, with decimal degrees instead of
degrees, minutes, and seconds.
5 Same as 1, with 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 (case sensitive) name of the ellipsoid used for the
map projections [WGS-84]. Choose among
WGS-84 1984 World Geodetic System
GRS-80 1980 International Geodetic Reference
System
WGS-72 1972 World Geodetic System
WGS-66 1966 World Geodetic System
Australian 1965 Used down under
Krassovsky 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 those mentioned here is
given, GMT will attempt to open this name as a file and
read the ellipsoid name, year, 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 (> 0) of map borders for fancy map frame [0.2c
(or 0.075i)].
GLOBAL_X_SCALE
Global x-scale (> 0) 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 (>= 0) of grid cross at lon-lat intersections. 0
means draw continuous gridlines instead [0].
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
4.17 of the GMT Technical Reference and Cookbook. 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 (> 0) for header in points [36].
HSV_MIN_SATURATION
Minimum saturation (0-1) assigned for most negative
intensity value [1.0].
HSV_MAX_SATURATION
Maximum saturation (0-1) assigned for most positive
intensity value [0.1].
HSV_MIN_VALUE
Minimum value (0-1) assigned for most negative inten-
sity value [0.3].
HSV_MAX_VALUE
Maximum value (0-1) assigned for most positive inten-
sity value [1.0].
INTERPOLANT
Determines if linear (linear), Akima's spline (akima),
or natural cubic spline (cubic) should be used for 1-D
interpolations in various programs [akima].
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 (> 0) for labels in points [24].
LINE_STEP
Determines the maximum length (> 0) of individual
straight line-segments when drawing arcuate lines
[0.025c (or 0.01i)]
MAP_SCALE_FACTOR
Sets the central scale factor (> 0) used for the Polar
Stereographic and Transverse Mercator projections.
Typically, it is set to 0.9996 to minimize areal dis-
tortion [0.9996].
MAP_SCALE_HEIGHT
Sets the height (> 0) on the map of the map scalebars
drawn by various programs [0.2c (or 0.075i)].
MEASURE_UNIT
Sets the unit length. Choose between cm, inch, m, and
point. [cm]. Note that, in GMT, one point is defined
as 1/72 inch (the PostScript definition), while it is
often defined as 1/72.27 inch in the typesetting indus-
try. There is no universal definition.
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. Give a red/green/blue triplet, with each ele-
ment in the 0-255 range. [255/255/255] (white)
PAGE_ORIENTATION * (-P)
Sets the orientation of the page. Choose portrait or
landscape [landscape].
PAPER_MEDIA
Sets the physical format of the current plot paper
[A4]. The following formats (and their widths and
heights in points) are recognized (Additional site-
specific formats may be specified in the gmtmedia.d
file in $GMTHOME/share; see that file for details):
Media width height
A0 2380 3368
A1 1684 2380
A2 1190 1684
A3 842 1190
A4 595 842
A5 421 595
A6 297 421
A7 210 297
A8 148 210
A9 105 148
A10 74 105
B0 2836 4008
B1 2004 2836
B2 1418 2004
B3 1002 1418
B4 709 1002
B5 501 709
archA 648 864
archB 864 1296
archC 1296 1728
archD 1728 2592
archE 2592 3456
flsa 612 936
halfletter 396 612
note 540 720
letter 612 792
legal 612 1008
11x17 792 1224
ledger 1224 792
To force the printer to request a manual paper feed,
append '-' to the media name, e.g., A3- will require
the user to insert a A3 paper into the printer's manual
feed slot. To indicate you are making an EPS file,
append '+' to the media name. Then, GMT will attempt
to issue a tight bounding box [Default is the paper
dimension].
PSIMAGE_FORMAT
Determines whether images created in PostScript should
use hexadecimal (i.e., 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 [0.2c
(or 0.075i)].
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 [-2c/-2c (or
-0.75i/-0.75i)].
VECTOR_SHAPE
Determines the shape of the head of a vector. Nor-
mally (i.e., for vector_shape = 0), the head will be
triangular, but can be changed to an arrow (1). Inter-
mediate settings gives something in between [0].
VERBOSE * (-V)
Determines if GMT programs should display run-time
information or run silently [FALSE].
WANT_EURO_FONT
Determines if GMT PostScript output should include font
re-encoding for accented European characters. See
Cookbook section 4.16 and Appendix H for details
[TRUE].
X_AXIS_LENGTH
Sets the default length (> 0) of the x-axis [25c (or
9i)].
Y_AXIS_LENGTH
Sets the default length (> 0) of the y-axis [15c (or
6i)].
X_ORIGIN * (-X)
Sets the x-coordinate of the origin on the paper for a
new plot [2.5c (or 1i)]. 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 [2.5c (or 1i)]. 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 (hor_text)
or vertically (ver_text) [hor_text].
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(l), gmtset(l)