Hello all,
this is to announce the release of version 1.75 of Ncview, a visual netCDF
data browser. People who use netCDF format files often find that Ncview
is a quick and useful tool for getting a feeling for what their data looks
like. It is available from:
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/ncview_home_page.html
Changes in this version are:
* Support for a time axis that uses the "udunits" package conventions.
What does this mean in practical term? Well, if you follow the udunits
conventions when setting the units and values of your time axis (for
example, units="days since 1990-01-01"), then Ncview will display the
calendar date of the data (such as "3_Jun_1995"), rather than a largely
uninterpretable value (such as "day 3907"). This works in the popup X-Y
plot, too. In practice, this is a great convenience if you use any
observed data.
* The code that determins the X windows visual has been extensively
reworked. An upshot of this is that it should now work correctly on all
screen depths of Linux boxes, and on Crays as well. (I think it should
still continue to work in the Win'95 Cygnus development environment, but
haven't tested it).
* Various bug fixes, including an annoying one that crashed when all data
values were zero.
* I've updated the binaries for platforms I have access to.
The head of the standard README follows.
Overview: What Ncview *is*.
---------------------------
This is the source for "ncview", a X Windows (Release 4 or higher)
visual browser for netCDF data format files. Ncview displays a
2-dimensional, color representation of data in a netCDF file. You
can animate the data in time (making simple movies), flip or enlarge
the picture, scan through various axes, change colormaps, etc. You
can also plot the data in X-Y plots and then print those, courtesy
of the SciPlot widget from Robert W. McMullen <rwmcm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>.
What Ncview *isn't*.
--------------------
Ncview is *not* an analysis package. There are several excellent
commercial packages available for that. Rather, its purpose in life
is to view movies or simple plots of data stored in netCDF format
files quickly, easily, and simply. To view your data in a 'movie',
all you do is fire Ncview up and press a couple buttons--that's it! To
make a plot, just click on the movie! By contrast, analysis programs
often require a lot of overhead massaging the data before you can do
much.
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David W. Pierce / Climate Research Division
Scripps Institution of Oceanography / (619) 534-8276 (voice)
dpierce@xxxxxxxx / (619) 534-8561 (fax)
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