34.1. Select raster layer

It allows users to enable a raster layer by clicking on it in the working area. It is necessary that the raster layer is visible.

It is available from the buttons bar of the raster layer.

As a result the layer will be automatically enabled in the TOC and its name will appear in the drop-down list of the toolbar.

34.2. Histogram

It allows to consult and modify the raster histogram.

It is available from the Layer” menu, the contextual menu of the layer in the TOC and the buttons bar of the raster layer.

The interface is the following one:


  1. With this option you can select the data source with which the histogram is generated:

      Because of the amount of time that it would take to calculate the histogram for large images, the histogram is only calculated once, which allows that the access be much faster next times a histogram or other functions which need acces to the histogram data are requested. The result of this calculation is in a new associated file with .rmf extension (it is generated in the folder in which the origin data of the image are; if we remove the .rmf file attached to the image, this calculation will be lost).

  1. Type: You can select one of the following types:

  1. Bands. It allows to enable the bands that will be displayed in the graph.

    It allows users to select bands by clicking on them (with the “Control” key pressed we will be able to select several bands). When a band is selected, by hovering the mouse over a point in the graph the name and the value of the point will appear.

  2. Graph. Viewing area of the histogram.

    We can zoom in and out of the graph using the mouse directly over the graph. To zoom in one part of the graph draw a rectangle over it by pressing and dragging the mouse to the right. To return to the original graph click on the left mouse button on any point in the graph and drag to the left, then release the mouse button.

    The controls that appear under the graph allow the user to restrict the range of values (X axis of the histogram) on which the histogram is based. The default setting is the complete range so that, for example in a Byte data type image, the statistics are calculated for all the pixel valued from 0 to 255. You can enter the values directly in the text boxes or use the “+” and “-” controls next to the text boxes. You can also slide the triangles over the sliding bar to select the range of values.

    Right-clicking in any part of the graph, the context menu is shown.

  1. Table. It shows the statistics that correspond to the selected range of pixel values. Each row of the table corresponds to one raster band as displayed in the histogram. The columns that are shown are:

  1. Create table. It allows users to create a data table in .dbf format with the histogram values. The table is atomatically added to gvSIG.

  2. Hide statistics. It reduces the window's size hidding the options related with the statistics.

The Raster section of the “Preferences” in gvSIG, contains the option “Number of Classes” where you can set the number of intervals in which the histogram is divided when the data type of the image is not Byte. For Byte images, this value is 256. In the preferences dialog, the default value of this option is 64. The intervals are the parts in which the range of values is divided. For example, if we have a DTM with values between 0 and 1 and there are 64 intervals, each interval will have a range of 1/64.

The number of classes does not only refer to histograms but also to other functionalities that require a division in intervals of value ranges.

34.3. Colour table

It allows users to assign specific RGB values to a range of pixel values in a single band image. We can apply existing color tables or create new ones.

It is available from the “Layer” menu, from the contextual menu of layer in the TOC and from the buttons bar of raster layer.

To use this function, it is important to know the minimum and maximum values in the image. If these values are unknown, they will have to be calculated. Depending on the size of the image, this calculation process may take some time.

The interface is the following one:

  1. Activate color table. When this tool is launched for an image without any associated color table, all the components are shown as not active. To start working we should tick the check box.

  2. Library. List of color tables that are included in gvSIG. You can choose a colour table to apply to the image.

    Right-clicking on this area, a contextual menu appears, which can change the way to visualize the libraries.


List

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Large Icon

    Below the colour table library there are buttons to add, export, import and delete colour tables. The supported formats are .rmf, .ggr and .gpl.

    When clicking on the button with the tooltip “New library”, a dialog opens which prompts for basic information of the colour table:

  1. Preview. It allows to visualize the results, in real time, of the changes which are being applied.

    The Preview has the following options:

  1. Central part. It allows to visualize the information of the color table associated with the image in tabular form (“Table” tab) or gradient form (“Gradient” tab).

  1. Controls of minimum and maximum values, and the “Recalc statistics” button.

  2. In the lower part of the dialog are the controls of the tabular and gradient view:

34.4. Information by point

It shows a window with the pixel information when clicking on it on the raster layer.

It is available in the raster toolbar and in the generic toolbar.

The interface is the following one:

In some cases, such as WMS layers, this window can have aditional information about the type of layer.

34.5. Area of interest

This tool allows to define regions of interest (ROIs) on a raster layer. This regions can be used to extract statistics, in classifications processes, to mask, etc.

It is available from the “Layer” manu, from the layer contextual menu in the TOC and from the raster toolbar.

The interface is the following one:

34.6. Generate overviews

It allows to create pyrimids. The pyrimids are versions of the image with lower resolution, which allow the rapid load of very big images (in a general zoom the lower resolution image is displayed, while when you zoom in, the more resolution image is loaded).

It is available from the “Layer” menu, from the layer contextual menu and from the raster toolbar.

The Raster section of the “Preferences” in gvSIG, contains the options that allow to generate “overviews”: overviews number, ratio and algorithm.

34.7. Analysis view

It is a tool for a quick inspection. It has two effects. It loads the same image in the TOC and it opens a new window where a detail zoom appears and where we can see the image's values in real time.

It is available from the raster toolbar.

With this functionality you can zoom in on the current layer with three different zoom levels:

There can only be one analysis view open at any time in gvSIG.

The button “Analysis view” is re-labelled as “Close Analysis view” when the analysis view is already open.