Welcome back to AWIPS Tips! Today’s focus is on CAVE’S Volume Browser. The Volume Browser is a tool for accessing model output and point sources like RAOB, METAR, and Profiler datasets. Rather than choosing from the preconfigured options in the default Data Menus, the Volume Browser allows you to select the exact sources, fields, planes, or points to display. The Volume Browser also has options for vertical cross sections, time series, and other display types, but today we will focus specifically on the default display type: plan views.
The Volume Browser can be opened from the Tools or Models menus. Once open, use the following steps to load data into a map editor.
1. Choose the display type
The Volume Browser defaults to the Plan view display type. If you need a different display type, open the Plan view menu and choose another display type. When another display type is chosen, the menu label will change to reflect the chosen display type.
2. Choose the loop type
The default option for Plan view display types is animation through time, meaning each frame of data will be a new time. The other option is space, meaning each frame of data will be a different vertical level. When animating by space, you will be prompted to choose a single time before loading the data into the map editor. To change the animation type, open the Time menu and choose Space. Note that the menu will change its label to Space after the Space option is chosen.
3. Choose the sources, fields, and planes
Under the menu bar are the Data Selection menus. The dropdown menus in the Sources, Fields, and Planes sections will vary depending on the display and animation type chosen. When expanding each dropdown, you will notice that some items have a green box to the left of the item’s name while others do not. The items with a green box indicate that that dataset is available on the EDEX that CAVE is connected to. Do not choose an item without a green box, as the data are not available and thus cannot be displayed.
4. Make the final product selection
After selecting sources, fields, and planes, the Product Selection List will populate with the products available on the connected EDEX. The Time column on the left shows the day of the month and the forecast run, and the Inventory column on the right shows which frames are available (+ is an available frame, - is a missing frame). Note that while several frames may be available, only the number of frames chosen from the Frames menu in CAVE’s main window will be displayed in the editor.
By default, all products will be selected. If you choose to not load a product, left-click on it to deselect.
5. Load the products
Along the bottom of the Volume Browser window are the Display buttons. Clicking the Load button will load all selected products into the map editor. The Diff button will activate when only two products are selected and will display a difference field between the two products.
A Time Match Basis product will be automatically chosen, but can be changed if needed.
That's all for this edition of AWIPS Tips, but stay tuned next week for an introduction to the EDEX Server.
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This blog was posted in reference to v18.2.1-1 of NSF Unidata AWIPS
