d.his(1)

NAME
d.his - Displays the result obtained by combining hue, intensity, and saturation (HIS) values from user-specified input raster map layers.

KEYWORDS
display, graphics, color transformation, RGB, HIS, IHS

SYNOPSIS
d.his
d.his --help
d.his [-n] hue=string [intensity=string] [saturation=string] [brighten=integer] [--help] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--ui]

  Flags:

-n
    Respect NULL values while drawing

--help
    Print usage summary

--verbose
    Verbose module output

--quiet
    Quiet module output

--ui
    Force launching GUI dialog

  Parameters:

hue=string [required]
    Name of layer to be used for hue

intensity=string
    Name of layer to be used for intensity

saturation=string
    Name of layer to be used for saturation

brighten=integer
    Percent to brighten intensity channel
    Options: -99-99
    Default: 0

DESCRIPTION
HIS stands for hue, intensity, and saturation. This program produces a raster map layer providing a visually pleasing combination of hue, intensity, and saturation values from two or three user-specified raster map layers.

The human brain automatically interprets the vast amount of visual information available according to basic rules. Color, or hue, is used to categorize objects. Shading, or intensity, is interpreted as three-dimensional texturing. Finally, the degree of haziness, or saturation, is associated with distance or depth. This program allows data from up to three raster map layers to be combined into an image which retains the original information in terms of hue, intensity, and saturation.

OPTIONS
This program can be run non-interactively or interactively. It will run non-interactively if the user specifies on the command line the name of a map containing hue values (hue), and the name(s) of map(s) containing intensity values (intensity) and/or saturation values (saturation). The resulting image will be displayed in the active display frame on the graphics monitor.

Alternately, the user can run the program interactively by typing d.his without naming parameter values on the command line. In this case, the program will prompt the user for parameter values using the standard GRASS GUI interface.

While any raster map layer can be used to represent the hue information, map layers with a few very distinct colors work best. Only raster map layers representing continuously varying data like elevation, aspect, weights, intensities, or amounts can suitably be used to provide intensity and saturation information.

For example, a visually pleasing image can be made by using a watershed map for the hue factor, an aspect map for the intensity factor, and an elevation map for saturation. (The user may wish to leave out the elevation information for a first try.) Ideally, the resulting image should resemble the view from an aircraft looking at a terrain on a sunny day with a bit of haze in the valleys.

The brighten option does not truly represent a percentage, but calling it that makes the option easy to understand, and it sounds better than Normalized Scaling Factor.

THE PROCESS
Each map cell is processed individually. First, the working color is set to the color of the corresponding cell in the map layer chosen to represent hue. Second, this color is multiplied by the red intensity of that cell in the intensity map layer. This map layer should have an appropriate gray-scale color table associated with it. You can ensure this by using the color manipulation capabilities of r.colors. Finally, the color is made somewhat gray-based on the red intensity of that cell in the saturation map layer. Again, this map layer should have a gray-scale color table associated with it.

NOTES
The name is misleading. The actual conversion used is

  H.i.s + G.(1-s)
where
  H   is the R,G,B color from the hue map
  i   is the red value from the intensity map
  s   is the red value from the saturation map
  G   is 50% gray (R = G = B = 0.5)

Either (but not both) of the intensity or the saturation map layers may be omitted. This means that it is possible to produce output images that represent combinations of his, hi, or hs.

Users wishing to store the result in new raster map layers instead of displaying it on the monitor should use the command r.his.

EXAMPLE

g.region raster=elevation
r.relief input=elevation output=elevation_shaded_relief
d.mon wx0
d.his hue=elevation intensity=elevation_shaded_relief brighten=50

SEE ALSO
d.colortable, d.frame, d.rgb, d.shade, r.colors, r.his, i.his.rgb, i.rgb.his

AUTHOR
James Westervelt, U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory

SOURCE CODE

Available at: d.his source code (history)

Accessed: Sunday Jun 21 14:58:22 2026

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© 2003-2023 GRASS Development Team, GRASS GIS 7.8.8 Reference Manual