McIDAS, ldm-mcidas, IDD Datastreams, Collaborations
Spring 2006

Tom Yoksas
August 24, 2006

Vision

Efforts referenced within this report are based on five of the six endeavors articulated in the Unidata 2008 Proposal:

• Endeavor 1: Responding to a broader and more diverse community
• Endeavor 2: Comprehensive Support Services
• Endeavor 4: Software to analyze and visualize geoscience data
• Endeavor 5: Distributed, organized collections of digital material
• Endeavor 6: Improved data access infrastructure

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Unidata McIDAS-X, -XCD

• Version 2006 released on August 4, 2006. As of August 24, 2006 5 sites have downloaded Unidata McIDAS 2006. For a historical comparison, 102 sites downloaded version 2004 and approx. 60 downloaded v2005.

• two bugfix/enhancement updates have been released for v2006.

• Highlights of the v2006 release include:
  • A new command, IMGRBG was added to McIDAS-X. IMGRGB combines images and basemaps into a multi-banded RGB image.

  • WWDISP was modified to correctly plot severe thunderstorm and tornado watch boxes. WWDISP in versions prior to 2006 will not plot the boxes because of a February 2006 change to the National Weather Service product headers.

  • GRDLIST output was modified because another space was required in the LEVEL field. To accommodate the extra space there while keeping the overall output width to 80 characters or less, the DAY, TIME and SRC fields were moved one space to the right, and the FHOUR field was reduced by one character.

  • The remote ADDE server installation script was removed from the Windows XP distribution.

  • A major change for the Unidata v2006 MCGUI is the reformulation of the image display definition file ADDEIMAGE.CORE. In an effort to make ADDEIMAGE.CORE (and ADDEIMAGE.SITE and ADDEIMAGE.USER) entries easier to create/modify, the format of the file has been completely changed. v2005 versions of ADDEIMAGE.(CORE|SITE|USER) are incompatible with MCGUI v2006. If you created any of these files, you need to move them out of your MCPATH directories before attempting to run MCGUI v2006.

  • A GRIB ADDE server is now available in v2006. One may continue to serve McIDAS GRID files as always, but may want to switch to the new GRIB server for faster data transfers and less disk space usage. The real-time GRIB server utilizes a MySQL database. Only GRIB files from the NOAAPORT data stream have been tested and are fully supported.

• continuing support/bug fixes for Unidata and SSEC McIDAS-X, -XCD

• training workshop scheduled for October 30 - November 2, 2006 at the CTTC training facility in UCAR. The McIDAS training session will be held in parallel with the netCDF and THREDDS workshops.

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ldm-mcidas, IDD datastreams, and NOAAPORT and GOES ingest

• ldm-mcidas: v2004 was released on October 15, 2004 Decoding support for the FSL2 RASS data will be added for the v2005 release in October/November. Modifications for BUFR format wind profiler data and support of McIDAS v2005 format of the satellite information file SATBAND will be included in a 2006 release. (Yoksas)

• Unidata-Wisconsin: IDD UNIWISC datastream continues to supply Unidata users with realtime GOES data. Plans for including GOES-10 imagery in North-South American composites have already been developed; implementation is contingent on GOES-10 starting operational scanning of South America from its position at 60 W.

• NOAAPORT: The Unidata-developed DVB-S NOAAPORT ingest system has been in use at the UPC and several (7) Unidata sites since the NWS transition to DVB-S broadcast. Four non-Unidata sites are know to be using the ingest system, but we don't spend effort tracking use. (Chiswell, Schmidt, Yoksas)

  SSEC provides and supports the Unidata DVB-S NOAAPORT ingest system for its licensed users of McIDAS-XCD.

  The SSEC-developed NOAAPORT desktop ingest system (SDI) that had been used by the SRCC was being repurposed at the UPC into a GOES-West ingester and ADDE image server for the Unidata community. SDI cards donated to the UPC by the Weather Underground and St. Louis University will be used to establish a GOES-East ingester in UCAR and as spare parts (active, Schmidt, Yoksas).

  Full resolution GOES-East/West imagery are also available via ADDE from a Unidata-owned, toplevel IDD relay node housed in the SSEC data center. (Yoksas, Schmidt).

• the NOAAPORT ingest system installed at the Universidad de Costa Rica in San Jose, Costa Rica continues to function as designed This NOAAPORT reception system installation is a high profile undertaking at the UCR, so its continued success remains important for Unidata. (Yoksas)

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Collaborations

Collaboration activities remain mostly unchanged since the May 2003 report. Details can be found in May 1, 2003 Policy Committee Report.

Collaborations that are most active include:

• Collaborations with EUMETSAT aimed at promoting use of remote access methodologies (first ADDE and then full THREDDS), first in Darmstadt and then in member states, have resulted in free ADDE access to real-time METEOSAT-8 data (after users register with EUMETSAT). EUMETSAT personnel (Marianne Koenig) reported on the status of this effort at the Spring 2006 AGU Joint Assembly held Baltimore, MD in May.

• INPE/CPTEC has succeeded in converting satellite imagery captured by its TeraScan (tm) system to McIDAS AREA format and is now providing the converted data through the IDD-Brazil. Evaluation of the images being produced by CPTEC by the UPC showed a systematic error in each band. CPTEC was informed of the problems (see CPTEC TDF -> McIDAS AREA imagery compared to SSEC McIDAS AREA imagery for one comparison and is taking corrective action. The UPC has been promised the code so it can evaluate the effort of turning it into an ADDE TDF server.

• MeteoForum. This collaboration resulted in the creation in the active South American extension of the IDD, the IDD-Brazil. This effort captured and still holds the interest in the highest levels in Brazilian meteorological circles. More information on the IDD-Brazil can be found in the MeteoForum status report.

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User Support

• continuing support of over 160 sites

• continuing participation by foreign universities (GEMPAK, IDV, McIDAS-X, LDM): Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, China (Hong Kong), Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Jamaica, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, Venezuela.

• additional information on Unidata User Support activities can be found in a separate report

by Tom Yoksas.