IDV 3.1 was released recently, and we wanted to take a moment to show you some of the new features.
Multi-view image and movie capture
(click to enlarge)
Previous versions of the IDV included the ability to create multi-view displays. However, users had only two options if they wanted to capture images or movies of all views at once. The first option was to use the IDV to capture the full window, including menus, toolbars, and other window dressing. The second option was to capture each view individually and stitch them together using an external program. In IDV version 3.1, users can capture the full view, which gives you an image of all the current views stitched together.
Save a multi-view image by selecting the All Views radio button on the Save dialog that appears when you select Image or Movie from the display's View -> Capture menu.
See Multi-Panel Display and Image and Movie Capture in the IDV User's Guide for details.
Latitude/Longitude labels
As of version 3.1, the IDV can display latitude and longitude axes and labels on the wireframe box, as well as displaying labels using the old method of adding latitude and longitude lines to the map through the Map Display control. You can now choose between labeling latitude and longitude lines using the b>Map Display control and adding latitude and longitude labels to the wireframe box itself. To annotate the wireframe box, open the Horizontal Scale tab of the View -> Properties menu and select the Visible checkboxes for latitude and longitude.
See View Properties in the IDV User's Guide for details.
Time matching
One of the most notable features of the IDV is its ability to integrate very different types of data. For example, you can easily display satellite data, radar data, surface observations, and model output all at the same time in the same display. However, these very different types of data also have very different sampling frequencies, and for some, that frequency changes (for example, when a scanning strategy is changed for a RADAR site). These different sampling frequencies could cause different displays to appear and disappear as a time-series animation of the data progressed, since data from different sources may or may not be present at each animation time step. (See top image, below.)
The time matching feature in IDV 3.1 allows you to specify one dataset as the "time driver" for display of all of the displayed data sets. When a time driver is selected, the IDV examines the times available for each dataset and displays data from the time step closest to the time step being displayed for the time driver dataset. The result is that the most relevant data from each dispalyed dataset is included in each animation frame, even if the times do not match exactly.
In the examples at left, we are displaying the following datasets, with the collection frequencies shown:
- LVX RADAR - 6 minutes
- IND RADAR - 6 minutes
- PAH RADAR - 6 minutes
- GOES East 6.5 um Water Vapor - 30 minute
- Surface (METAR) data - 60 minute
In the top image, no time driver is selected, and only data from the exact time of each animation time step is displayed, with the result that the satellite data (collected every 30 minutes) is only available for some of the animation time steps. In the bottom image, the LVX RADAR data is selected as the time driver display. The time step from each of the other displays that most closely matches the time from the time driver display is shown in the animation.
See Time Matching in the IDV Release Notes for details.
