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% File src/library/grDevices/man/contourLines.Rd
% Part of the R package, https://www.R-project.org
% Copyright 1995-2019 R Core Team
% Distributed under GPL 2 or later

\name{contourLines}
\alias{contourLines}
\title{Calculate Contour Lines}
\description{
  Calculate contour lines for a given set of data.
}
\usage{
contourLines(x = seq(0, 1, length.out = nrow(z)),
             y = seq(0, 1, length.out = ncol(z)),
             z, nlevels = 10,
             levels = pretty(range(z, na.rm = TRUE), nlevels))
}
\arguments{
  \item{x, y}{locations of grid lines at which the values in \code{z} are
    measured.  These must be in ascending order.  By default, equally
    spaced values from 0 to 1 are used.  If \code{x} is a \code{list},
    its components \code{x$x} and \code{x$y} are used for \code{x}
    and \code{y}, respectively. If the list has component \code{z} this
    is used for \code{z}.}
  \item{z}{a matrix containing the values to be plotted (\code{NA}s are
    allowed).  Note that \code{x} can be used instead of \code{z} for
    convenience.}
  \item{nlevels}{number of contour levels desired \bold{iff}
    \code{levels} is not supplied.}
  \item{levels}{numeric vector of levels at which to draw contour
    lines.}
}
\details{
  \code{contourLines} draws nothing, but returns a set of contour lines.

  There is currently no documentation about the algorithm.
  The source code is in \file{\var{\link{R_HOME}}/src/main/plot3d.c}.
}
\value{
  A \code{\link{list}} of contours, each itself a \code{list} with elements:
  \item{level }{The contour level.}
  \item{x }{The x-coordinates of the contour.}
  \item{y }{The y-coordinates of the contour.}
}
\seealso{
  \code{\link{options}("max.contour.segments")} for the maximal
  complexity of a single contour line.

  \code{\link{contour}}: Its \sQuote{Examples} demonstrate how
  \code{contourLines()} can be drawn and are the same (as those from
  \code{contour()}).
}
\examples{
x <- 10*1:nrow(volcano)
y <- 10*1:ncol(volcano)
cl <- contourLines(x, y, volcano)
## summarize the sizes of each the contour lines :
cbind(lev = vapply(cl, `[[`, .5, "level"),
       n  = vapply(cl, function(l) length(l$x), 1))

z <- outer(-9:25, -9:25)
pretty(range(z), 10) # -300 -200 ... 600 700
utils::str(c2 <- contourLines(z))
   # no segments for {-300, 700};
   #  2 segments for {-200, -100, 0}
   #  1 segment  for  100:600
}
\keyword{dplot}