RE: [Gdal-dev] RE: GDAL netcdf convention CF support

• Subject: RE: [Gdal-dev] RE: GDAL netcdf convention CF support
• From: "Norman Barker" <nbarker@xxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:36:14 +0100

On 8/18/05, Norman Barker <nbarker@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi, this is a really exciting announcement. I have run ncdump on my netcdf file

and checked the variables, and gdalinfo picks up the lat, lon, and ozone
vars ok.  It puts the z-levels in bands within the data file which is ok
since that was the way that we had done it with geotiff.  It has lost the
information attaching the band level to an atmospheric height.  Even if this
was a comma separated index string it would be useful.    It has also lost
the Time dimension stamp within the file.  Again is this could just be a

metadata tag that would be great.

Norman / Denis,

I agree that attaching the dimension value(s) unrolled as bands as

band metatadata would be desirable.

I would like to help wrap this into MapServer WCS if possible, if I am
missing something with my comments above please let me know.  This is great

though, is has caused great excitement in our office!

Are you interested in having GDAL write netCDF files so that MapServer can return netCDF files? As far as I know, there is no

support for creation/writing in the generic netcdf module in GDAL but

it seems like it might not be that hard to implement.

<snip>

Ideally having MapServer return netCDF would be a nice to have, but as we have 
discussed before about 3D BBOX + parameters (and this is an aim of OGC GALEON), 
there is little to differentiate between a geotiff and a netCDF file (or any 
banded file) when implemented this way (2D + bands for the z-level).  If we 
could access netCDF through MapServer in an ND sense it would be different, I 
hope this is something we can work through in GALEON.  It is still possible to 
make a very workable WCS with 2D + bands though, and I am interested in a way 
to keep the metadata within the file.

However most of the work (for example when you have 40TB of data as our domain 
user does!) is in the conversion, so having gdal and hence MapServer read CF 
netCDF is a major plus (really good!), and makes using MapServer WCS even 
easier.

This is great though, I am compiling up MapServer with this new GDAL as we 
speak!

Hats off to Denis and Frank!

Norman

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: [Gdal-dev] RE: GDAL netcdf convention CF support
    • From: Denis Nadeau