I think a key part of releasing 5.0 with PR enabled is to have some
clear use cases for its use included in the documentation.
_____________________________________________
Kevin Tyle, Systems Administrator
Dept. of Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences
University at Albany
Earth Science 235, 1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
Email: ktyle@xxxxxxxxxx <mailto:ktyle@xxxxxxxxxx>
Phone: 518-442-4578
_____________________________________________
*From:*Brian Mapes [mailto:bmapes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
*Sent:* Tuesday, March 11, 2014 4:46 AM
*To:* Tyle, Kevin R
*Cc:* Jim Steenburgh; Yuan Ho; <idv-steering@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
idvdevelopers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* Re: New test release of Image Chooser and PR
On Mar 10, 2014, at 8:13 PM, Tyle, Kevin R wrote:
I too echo Jim's thoughts ... great job to Yuan and all the developers!
This shames me that I forgot to lead with the praise: Great job!
I have learned to use RBB and really enjoy UsePD for exploring.
How it beats the old imagery bounding!
User Preferences allows user to enable Progressive Disclosure, but
it also appears in the Projections Menu in Map View windows. If
User Prefs has it set to no, then setting it to yes in Projections
has no effect.
I don't think this is correct -- I have set it to default no in my
Prefs, but am able to switch it on as desired from the Projections menu.
Projections --> Use Displayed Area is non-intuitive ... zooms out
and reloads data, and in my case, did not re-draw contours. What is
the purpose of this option?
It does redraw the contours --- but 360 degrees of longitude east!
You have to zoom out 2 planets worth to see them - screenshot. (Bug!)
Kevin, It sets a (square) wireframe box covering the Displayed Area,
which you can use to clip displays.
I find that useful for clipping 3D isosurface displays to clear
cluttered sight lines for oblique views.
(although RBB may be better for that clipping some day!)
Also it redefines the height for 3D displays if they are too tall or short.
Not clear to me how one can take Don's Local Weather (Boulder)
bundle and change projection so data
loads over another city (e.g. Miami) ... when I try this, map view
changes projection but no new
data loads. APPARENTLY THIS IS ONLY AN ISSUE FOR OLD BUNDLES
*
http://motherlode.ucar.edu/repository/entry/get/BoulderWx.xidv?entryid=b3c53509-4db9-45de-b2ae-800d2a833ecc
<qobject:history:0>
I loaded this, then turned on UsePD for the session, and also for each
display.
Then I RBB an area. The contours and stations move upon RBB, but the
imagery fields do not.
(the +360 longitude bug upon Projections --> Use Displayed Area can be
seen using this bundle).
-------------main issue: there are now two kinds of displays, old and new
Starting with other old bundles, I find I am able to convert most
existing displays to UsePD displays by turning the UsePD checkbox on in
the View menu of that display's control window. (not 3D displays yet,
though, says Yuan)
But there is no going back: I find that once an old-style display has
ever touched UsePD,
* it will never again respect the Dataset spatial subset box.
* it will always reopen in a .xidv to cover the entire and only the
initial displayed region.
Even if its UsePD check is turned off before saving, and/or UsePD is
off in the session when you open the bundle -- in short, no matter what
you do. Currently. (is this structural, or strategic?)
So UsePD is a change in usage culture... one that many users will find
purely a 100% improvement, and one I could come around to if I rethink
my strategy and approaches. But I would like some cues about future
intentions. Before a big release, it would be nice to see some draft of
the release notes and.or documentation text about what UsePD was
designed to do, what it was expanded to also do (and why), what the
future intention is, what aspects are irreversible or hard to change
structurally, pitfalls or surprises, etc.
For example, dataset-level subsetting would have only one useful effect
in a UsePD-driven new IDV, if I understand right: It clips the data
going into a .zidv file. That can be confusing, as a .zidv bundle may
come up blank because you subset the data for a different region than
the one you were happily examining at the moment you saved it. (I tried
this).
I'm looking forward to hearing about the Miami IDV workshop ... I am
sure Brian will have lots of good ideas to keep Yuan and company busy!
I hope there could be some strategic guidance, not just training on
individual capabilities and features and letting users string them
together in an ad hoc way. Maybe that is too much a matter of personal
style? But there are getting to be so many features ... it's not easy to
find a satisfying, reliable workflow that doesn't lead to surprises or
dead ends or clutter. I have been down many such dead ends in trial and
error, and now may be missing some great features for fear of deviating
from safe pathways.
Examples of strategic-use questions I think even 2-day beginners should
hear about at training--
* Sphere view or flat view? Choose wisely, you can never convert later.
Should we all be moving to sphere? These were developed in some order,
far apart in time, presumably. What are the issues? (seams, size,
transects, etc)
* UsePD or not to UsePD? Will one ever, down the line, want to save this
display over a fixed area? Then you have to refrain from ever touching
or even having checked the UsePD (or Match Display Area) feature during
its creation, however tempting that may be.
* Cross sections vs transects? Cross sections are easy, they are in the
displays menu. But down the line you discover that sharing several cross
sections shares the color bar, not just the location. Surprise! and
there is no back button or autosave recovery. If transects are clearly
better, let's say so right up front and train on them instead of cross
sections.
* How to meaningfully reuse the considerable work one puts into a nice
IDV session? Save whole bundles (with or without datasets?), data
favorites, displays, display settings, colorbars, all of the above? Can
saved bundles be partly-reused, or is the Display the most efficient and
meaningful unit of recycling? What's the strategy? Down the line it may
become clear what you wish you saved, but can best practices be trained
at the outset?
* Does it matter if you save a bundle without datasets, vs. opening it
later with Change Data Path? (YES, I think... In the latter case, you
have to go off and find a Data Sources file, which may have to match the
format of the saved file exactly, while in the former case you can
select fields in sources you may already have attached...) But
unchecking Data Sets in the Save dialog is dangerous: it's easy to
forget you have done it, and it applies as default to all future saves.
Surprise! Your bundles all have no datasets. Argh.
* Imagery choices are so many and inscrutable. Is there a reliable
subset, or a guide page? Can some dead ones be pruned?
* Dealing with errors. What are the most common ones, what do they mean,
when should you try to parse them vs. just click "OK".
Well something to think about.
Sleepless in Miami
Brian
p.s. anyone else have this happen? Dead views piling up? Maybe it's
harmless.
