19990218: gpfront...

Maureen,

You should find the ntl program in the $GEMEXE directory with
all of the other GUIS (garp. nsat, nwx etc.).

I can provide a solaris binary- but need to clear out some work I 
have in progress presently. 

Steve Chiswell
Unidata User Support



>From: Maureen Ballard <address@hidden>
>Organization: UK Ag Weather Center
>Keywords: 199902182210.PAA18226

>Steve,
>
>Thanks for the information - I have suspected for a while that since we run th
> ings from
>the cron, they are stepping on one another - just didn't know how to fix it. I
> 'll speak
>with our computer programmer in the morning about semaphores since I know noth
> ing about
>them - hopefully he will!
>
>About the ntl thing though. I tried launching it but it wasn't in the director
> y I was in.
>Where would the executable be? I am having problems locating it. Thanks for th
> e help.
>
>By the way, our programmer, Gary Howe, had written a couple weeks back asking 
> if you
>would once again post the gempak binary. Just wondering what the status of tha
> t is.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Maureen
>
>Unidata Support wrote:
>
>> Maureen,
>>
>> If you are drawing your images to the console, its probably a good idea
>> to launch ntl once on the console, and leave it running. This should really
>> help with color map problems since all gempak programs will share the same
>> colormap that ntl has allocated.
>>
>> The other alternative to draving maps on the console is to create a virtual
>> screen using the X11R6 program Xvfb (virtual frame buffer), however, if you
>> don't have that program, keeping ntl on your desktop is probably the best th
> ing.
>>
>> The most frequent problems with hung gempak programs is having conflicts wit
> h
>> obtaining the message queues. If you find that your programs have gotten
>> hung up, check for old copies of gplt as well as device drivers (gf/xw etc)
>> in your process tables. After killing those programs, you will generally hav
> e to
>> clear out the message queues (using ipcs to list the queues, and ipcrm to
>> remove them). Usually a program gets hung when either it can't connect to
>> the console for some reason, or there is not enough memory to fire up the
>> gplt program, or several gempak program have a contention for the same
>> message quueue (possible if 2 crons start up at nearly the same time
>> since the both check to see if a queue is used, and both try to
>> start gplt with the same queue id).
>>
>> If you have crons that tend to launch gempak programs while others are still
>  running,
>> you may want to arrange a semaphore system in your scripts to prevent them f
> rom
>> stepping on each other. I use semaphores with the automatic generation of NI
> DS images
>> I have here running from the LDM, since when the LDM first starts up, there 
> is
>> a tendency to get a bunch of backlogged images all at once which can lead
>> to race conditions for lots of programs being fired up.
>>
>> Steve Chiswell
>> Unidata User Support
>>
>> >From: Maureen Ballard <address@hidden>
>> >Organization: UK Ag Weather Center
>> >Keywords: 199902182100.OAA16345
>>
>> >Steve,
>> >
>> >Thanks for the info on the changes to gpfront - I will do that in just a mi
> nut
>> > e.
>> >
>> >> The topo images can be displayed an any mapping programs so long as
>> >> proj=sat. Eg, the topo images are AREA files just like the McIDAS
>> >> satellite images. Since they are the same as satellite images, they
>> >> require the same number of colors as a GOES-10 image would- 128 colors.
>> >> Define the topo file with satfil=... and set clear=y to display the
>> >> image with the fronts/contours etc overlayed.
>> >>
>> >> If you are having trouble with color allocation, launch ntl first
>> >> if you don't already have that running. Ntl will either allocate all the 
> col
>> > ors
>> >> you will need, or tell you howmany you need. If you don't have enough
>> >> colors, try launching ntl with the -s option to reduce the number of
>> >> satellite colors- for instance, ntl -s 96 or ntl -s 64.
>> >>
>> >
>> >Okay, now here's a question for you. We run all of our maps through crontab
>  en
>> > tries
>> >and I have never used ntl. Should I have the crontab launch ntl at the star
> t o
>> > f
>> >each map or should we launch ntl once and leave it running?
>> >
>> >Thanks...
>> >Maureen
>> >
>> >> Steve Chiswell
>> >>
>> >> >From: Maureen Ballard <address@hidden>
>> >> >Organization: UK Ag Weather Center
>> >> >Keywords: 199902182012.NAA15031
>> >>
>> >> >Steve,
>> >> >
>> >> >I saw the messages posted about the weird looking warm fronts - we were
>> >> >beginning to wonder! Hope NCEP gets that all straightened out soon!
>> >> >
>> >> >Any way, I was wondering if the fronts can be placed on a topo map. I
>> >> >tried a couple times and got various errors (partially because there
>> >> >were problems allocating colors). I did a reboot of the system since I
>> >> >couldn't figure out what processes had hung (seem to have that problem
>> >> >quite a bit here) and then tried but still can't get it to work. For
>> >> >that matter I can't seem to get it to work with gdcntr either. Since the
>> >> >topo maps are so colorful, are they a resource hog when it come to color
>> >> >allocation?
>> >> >
>> >> >Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>> >> >
>> >> >Thanks!
>> >> >
>> >> >Maureen
>> >> >
>> >> >--
>> >> >========================================================================
>> >> >
>> >> >Maureen Moore Ballard                   address@hidden
>> >> >Staff Meteorologist                           ph:  606-257-3000ext244
>> >> >Ag. Weather Center                         fax: 606-257-5671
>> >> >243 Ag. Engineering Bldg
>> >> >Dept. of Biosystems and Ag. Engr.
>> >> >University of Kentucky
>> >> >Lexington, KY 40546-0276
>> >> >HOMEPAGE   http://wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu
>> >> >
>> >> >You don't stop laughing because you grow old;
>> >> >you grow old because you stop laughing.
>> >> >========================================================================
> =
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> *************************************************************************
> ***
>> >> Unidata User Support                                    UCAR Unidata Prog
> ram
>> >> (303)497-8644                                                  P.O. Box 3
> 000
>> >> address@hidden                                   Boulder, CO 80
> 307
>> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
>> >> Unidata WWW Service                        http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/
>> >> *************************************************************************
> ***
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >--
>> >========================================================================
>> >Maureen Moore Ballard                   address@hidden
>> >Staff Meteorologist                           ph:  606-257-3000ext244
>> >Ag. Weather Center                         fax: 606-257-5671
>> >243 Ag. Engineering Bldg
>> >Dept. of Biosystems and Ag. Engr.
>> >University of Kentucky
>> >Lexington, KY 40546-0276
>> >HOMEPAGE   http://wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu
>> >
>> >You don't stop laughing because you grow old;
>> >you grow old because you stop laughing.
>> >=========================================================================
>> >
>> >
>>
>> ****************************************************************************
>> Unidata User Support                                    UCAR Unidata Program
>> (303)497-8644                                                  P.O. Box 3000
>> address@hidden                                   Boulder, CO 80307
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Unidata WWW Service                        http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/     
>> ****************************************************************************
>
>
>
>--
>========================================================================
>Maureen Moore Ballard                   address@hidden
>Staff Meteorologist                           ph:  606-257-3000ext244
>Ag. Weather Center                         fax: 606-257-5671
>243 Ag. Engineering Bldg
>Dept. of Biosystems and Ag. Engr.
>University of Kentucky
>Lexington, KY 40546-0276
>HOMEPAGE   http://wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu
>
>You don't stop laughing because you grow old;
>you grow old because you stop laughing.
>=========================================================================
>
>