[GRASS-user] error message coming with r.colors

[Glynn Clements]

Nikos Alexandris wrote:

> > The -g and -e switches make grey.log and grey.eq redundant
> 
> By the way, something I don't understand (copy-paste from the manual):
> 
> The -e flag equalizes the original raster's color table. It can preclude
> the need for grey.eq rule, when used as -e color=grey. Note however,
> that this will not yield a color table identical to color=grey.eq,
> because grey.eq scales the fraction by 256 to get a grey level, while -e
> uses it to interpolate the original colour table.

It then goes on to say:

	If the original colour table is a 0-255 grey scale, -e is
	effectively scaling the fraction by 255. Different algorithms
	are used. -e is designed to work with any color table, both
	the floating point and the integer raster maps.

Essentially the only difference is in how a floating-point value
between 0 and 1 is converted to an integer between 0 and 255. In
practice, the difference will be invisible to the eye.

Here's a concrete example:

	$ r.colors elevation.dem -e color=grey
	Reading elevation.dem ...
	Color table for <elevation.dem> set to grey
	$ r.mapcalc 'tmp1 = r#elevation.dem'
	$ r.colors elevation.dem color=grey.eq
	Reading elevation.dem ...
	Color table for <elevation.dem> set to grey.eq
	$ r.mapcalc 'tmp2 = r#elevation.dem'
	$ r.mapcalc 'diff = tmp1 - tmp2'
	$ r.stats -c diff
	-1 155417
	0 147001
	r.stats complete.

So, roughly half the cells are identical between the two, while half
differ by one intensity level.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>