A popular data analysis and visualization programming environment, IDL is used worldwide by scientists and engineers in fields as diverse as the sciences of physics, medical physics, and engineering test and analysis. In Practical IDL Programming, Liam E. Gumley provides a solid foundation in the basics of procedural programming in IDL. In addition, this book offers readers practical tips and advice on IDL programming, which they otherwise would discover only after years of experience. While only modest prior programming experience is assumed, readers with experience in a procedural language will quickly translate their skills to IDL, learning the best programming practices for this new environment. * Presents a comprehensive and detailed treatment of IDL data types, operators, expressions, array operations, input and output, direct graphics, planning and imaging, a higher quality output, and graphical user interface. * Designed for beginners and experienced users of IDL programmer and the same. * Provides an accompanying Web site with download versions of all IDL programs in the book and a link to download a demonstration version of the software IDL.