Map image
| Document kind | map-image |
| Drawn from | a tool result — there is no file behind it |
What it draws
A plasmid map as a finished figure — the picture you put in a thesis, a slide or a paper, rather than the interactive map you work in.
The distinction matters and is the reason this exists separately from the sequence map. The interactive map is a working surface: it responds to selection, it reveals detail on hover, it reflows with the panel. A figure is a fixed thing with a stated size, chosen labels and a caption, and it must look the same everywhere it is opened, including in software that is not this application.
The drawing carries the circle, the feature arcs with their labels, and the restriction sites you chose to show, laid out with the same geometry the interactive map uses so the figure is recognisably the map you were reading.
What opens in it
Nothing is opened here from a file. This canvas is the output of exporting the open construct's map, and what it draws is the export as it will be written.
An SVG figure exported earlier and re-opened is a file, and opens in the SVG viewer. That is not a bug: once written, a figure is a drawing like any other, and the application does not claim to be able to turn it back into a map.
What this computes
This canvas computes a figure, and the difference from the interactive map is the whole point: a figure has a fixed size, chosen labels and a caption, and must look the same everywhere it is opened — including in software that is not this application.
- The same map geometry the interactive canvas uses — the circle, the feature arcs, the restriction sites you chose — so the figure is recognisably the map you were reading rather than a second, differently drawn picture of the same construct.
- Label placement at a fixed output size. Labels are placed where they fit without overlapping; on a dense construct that means some are moved onto leaders away from their feature, and a few of the least significant may go unlabelled. The figure says which rather than stacking unreadable text.
- Coordinates as the editor numbers them, so a site labelled at a position is at that position in the sequence. The map is not rotated to make labels fit — the origin is drawn where the sequence's own origin is.
Nothing here is live, and that is what makes it portable. Nothing on the figure is selectable or hoverable, because nothing on it is connected to the sequence any more. Re-opening an exported figure gives you a drawing in the SVG viewer, not a map: once written, a figure is a picture like any other.
Reading it
A figure is not a live map. Nothing on it is selectable and nothing hovers, because nothing on it is connected to the sequence any more — that is what makes it portable.
Coordinates on the figure are the construct's own numbering, as the editor shows them, so a site labelled at a position is at that position in the sequence. A construct's origin is drawn where the sequence's own origin is; the map is not rotated to make labels fit.
Labels are drawn where they fit without overlapping. On a dense construct that means some labels are placed on leaders away from their feature, and a few of the least significant may not be labelled at all — the figure says so rather than stacking unreadable text.
Controls
Four choices, and each one changes the file that gets written:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Title | the caption drawn on the figure; leave it empty for an untitled map |
| Size | the figure's dimensions, which set how much room labels have |
| Transparent background | writes the figure with no background, for placing on a coloured slide |
| Show labels | draws feature names, or the arcs alone |
| Show sites | draws the restriction sites, or the features alone |
Size is the one that most changes the result: labels are laid out for the size you ask for, so a small figure is not a large one scaled down — it has fewer labels, placed differently.
Where it appears
In the export panel, as a preview of what will be written, and as a stage tab when you want to look at the figure at full size before committing to it.
Performance and limits
The figure is drawn as vectors and then rasterised at the resolution your display implies, so a figure exported for print is drawn at a higher sample rate than the one on screen.
The limit worth stating: a figure is a snapshot. Change the construct afterwards and the figure does not change with it. Re-export is the only way to bring a figure up to date, and a figure in a manuscript should be re-exported whenever the construct it describes has moved on.
Screenshots
No frame is committed for this canvas yet. What one would show: a gel photograph or micrograph opened as its own canvas.
The absence is stated rather than left as a blank heading: a picture that does not exist yet is worth knowing about, and a placeholder would be worse than either.
Related
The sequence map, which this is a figure of; the SVG viewer, where an exported figure re-opens.