CPLOT Software:  Release Notes and Install Instructions

By David J. Delene

Update on January 26, 2016

Cplot and Cplot2 are software programs for quick visualization of data from University of North Dakota's Citation Research Aircraft flights.  Cplot and Cplot2 are part of the Airborne Data Processing and Analysis (ADPAA) software package which is hosted at Sourceforge.net.  Cplot/Cplot2 are written in IDL which is a commercial software development package similar to Matlab and python.  Anyone can use the programs by downloading the cplot.sav and/or cplot2.sav file and using the IDL virtual machine.  No license fee is required to install the IDL virtual machine and run the Cplot/Cplot2 executables.  Cplot2 is similar to the original Cplot program; however, Cplot2 uses IDL's "new graphics" feature to create plots that are more easily adjustable.

Download the cplot.sav or cplot2.sav file.

  1. Create a directory on your computer to save the file, for example a directory named C:\Program Files\cplot.

  2. Downloaded the latest version of cplot from Source Forge site to your computer.

Download and install the IDL virtual machine.

  1. The IDL virtual machine can be downloaded for fee but requires registration, see the IDL FAQ

  2. Note that the download file is very large.  UND Atmospheric Science personnel can access the IDL install files from the Ez software site.
  3. Run the IDL installation program, i.e. idl64.exe
  4. Choose to install IDL.
  5. When asked, choose to install the "IDL Virtual Machine", you don't need the full "IDL" development package.
Create a shortcut on the desktop to start IDL.
  1. Right click on the desktop back ground
  2. Select New/shortcut
  3. Type in the following for the location (Assuming IDL6.4 was installed in the default location and the cplot.sav file was placed in c:\Program Files\cplot).  c:\RSI\IDL64ubin\bin.x86\idlrt.exe -vm="c:\Program Files\cplot\cplot.sav"
Copyright 2010-2016 by David J. Delene
 This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License

 This file is part of Airborne Data Processing and Analysis (ADPAA).

 ADPAA is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

 ADPAA is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with ADPAA.  If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.