Re: Higher resolution topographic gempak sat files

On Fri, 2007-01-12 at 06:32 -0500, Alan Robson wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> 
> That looks awesome and will do quite nicely as far as the resolution 
> goes. We'll have to adjust the colors a bit so some of our darker items 
> overlaid show up okay, but that won't be hard to do.
> 
> I've never heard of a "gini" file, but I guess its just another sort of 
> sat image file?

Alan,

Gini is the format of those remappes satellite images on NOAAport. 
I can create an AREA file, but GINI was easier for a grid to image
process.

> 
> Also, there's no reason why we can't initially output a .pcs file 
> instead of .gif is there? The end user that we are initially doing this 
> for wants .eps files for publication. Of course the color tables will 
> have to have some adjustment compared to gif.

No reason. The postscript driver in GEMPAK is capable of printing the
SATFIL or RADFIL images being displayed.

> 
> Thanks again for all your help and for getting this done so quickly. I 
> really do appreciate it and this will end up improving the appearance of 
> all of our products that use a "topo" background.
> 
> Alan

Yes, the colors may be muted to make overlays more readable. Thats just
a matter of playing with the lut file.

Let me know if you need anything along the way.

Steve Chiswell
Unidata User Support



> 
> Steve Chiswell wrote:
> > Alan,
> >
> > I'll be out of the office next week for the AMS,  but would be happy to
> > work with you 
> > more after I return.
> >
> > It would be possible for me to provide you with the topo to grid to
> > image programs,
> > but you would have to run my binaries to do that until your version of
> > GEMPAK is capable of handling larger grids (since I use the grid
> > navigation routines to handle the
> > transformation from lat/lon projection to other projections). So, for a
> > quick start,
> > I provided a sample using the 5min dem data since it included bathymetry
> > as the image you are currently using does.
> >
> > I created a ~6km resolution GIF as a sample from the 5min dem data at:
> > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/chiz/gifs/topo_nam.gif
> >
> > You can download the gini file that created the image at:
> > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/chiz/gifs/ustopo_dem5.gini
> >
> > For GINI, I used the GOES7 satellite ID here since you probably cannot
> > remap an unused ID with your version of GEMPAK. The
> > $GEMTBL/sat/imgtyp.tbl entry to display this image is:
> > TOPO                 TOPO_DEM5     0     95     33  32768      1
> > upc_dem5.tbl
> >
> > You can download the color table for your $GEMTBL/luts directory here:
> > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/chiz/gifs/upc_dem5.tbl
> >
> > The GPMAP parameters to display the image as the GIF above is shown
> > below, where I've added:
> > BND = lakes/24 
> > to fill in the lakes as water color (since the DEM data would be above
> > sea level and not blue there). You can set the GAREA smaller than dset
> > as necessary.
> >
> >  GAREA  = dset
> >  PROJ       = sat
> >  SATFIL   = ustopo_dem5.gini
> >  BND        = lakes/24
> >  LUTFIL   = default
> >
> > The 30 second data is great for smaller areas where you can take
> > advantage of the resolution, more therelater if you feed this is where
> > you want to go.
> >
> > Steve Chiswell
> > Unidata User Support
> >
> > On Tue, 2007-01-09 at 14:07 -0500, address@hidden wrote:
> >   
> >> Steve,
> >>
> >> It's hard to say just what kind of resolution that we need as I am not
> >> sure what we are currently using. I think that maybe the one we use is 5
> >> min. We have had it for at least 5 years.
> >>
> >> I really do not want this to be a lot of work for you. Is there any way
> >> that we could run the grid-to-image conversion on the data so we could
> >> play around with various data sets to see what we like? (That assumes it
> >> would run on our workstations, which run RHEL3 and RHEL4.) It would be
> >> nice to have some background for general use that is better than what we
> >> have now but also a much better background if we need to produce much
> >> higher quality images for publication.
> >>
> >> Alan
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: Steve Chiswell <address@hidden>
> >> Date: Tuesday, January 9, 2007 12:43 pm
> >> Subject: Re: Higher resolution topographic gempak sat files
> >>
> >>     
> >>> Alan,
> >>>
> >>> I have created both 30 second and 5 minute global topography (dem) 
> >>> datasets.
> >>> The 5 minute dem data has bathymetry, while the 30 second data set 
> >>> doesnot.
> >>>
> >>> I provide these as a grid
> >>> (http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/downloads/gempak/tables/)
> >>> for use with a program I call GDTOPO which allows users to create a
> >>> subset for a Gempak grid file. However, it would be possible to map 
> >>> thegrid into an image to use as a background using the same grid to 
> >>> imageconversion that I do for our
> >>> radar composite images.
> >>>
> >>> If you can provide some information regarding the resolution
> >>> (pixel-->km) you
> >>> need, I can look into making some background images.
> >>>
> >>> Steve Chiswell
> >>> Unidata User Support
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, 2007-01-09 at 10:50 -0500, Alan Robson wrote:
> >>>       
> >>>> Hi Mr Chiswell,
> >>>>
> >>>> My name is Alan Robson and I work in the Development and Training 
> >>>>         
> >>> Branch 
> >>>       
> >>>> of the Hydrometeorological Precipitation Center in Camp Springs, 
> >>>> Maryland.   I am not sure if you the right person to address this 
> >>>> request to and hope you will forward it to the appropriate 
> >>>>         
> >>> individual if 
> >>>       
> >>>> you are not.
> >>>>
> >>>> We produce many meteorological products for our webpage ( 
> >>>> http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/ ) that use a fairly low resolution 
> >>>> topographic gempak sat file as a background.   This is a sample 
> >>>>         
> >>> of one 
> >>>       
> >>>> of our most popular products that gets very many webhits:  
> >>>> http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/noaa/noaa.gif
> >>>>
> >>>> We are currently attempting to improve the appearance of our 
> >>>>         
> >>> products 
> >>>       
> >>>> and need to find a higher resolution version of the topographic 
> >>>>         
> >>> gempak 
> >>>       
> >>>> satellite file to use as a background.
> >>>>
> >>>> Can you help us or give me the name of someone who can?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks
> >>>>
> >>>> Alan Robson
> >>>> HPC/NCEP
> >>>> Camp Springs, MD
> >>>>
> >>>>         
> >>> -- 
> >>> Steve Chiswell <address@hidden>
> >>> Unidata
> >>>
> >>>       
-- 
Steve Chiswell <address@hidden>
Unidata