[IDV #ENQ-359474]: questions on IDV

Hi Terry-

> I am currently writing the third edition of my book Thematic
> Cartography and Geographic Visualization and would like to discuss the
> IDV system in one of my chapters. In an earlier edition of the text, I
> discussed the Vis5D system, which now appears to be out-of-date. I have
> a few questions concerning IDV:

Thanks for including the IDV.

> 1) I'm having trouble creating a topographic map of the United States
> similar to the one shown in your samples ("Image 4:RUC model terrain"
> under 8.0.1.1 Topography Display). Could you provide some guidance?

If you have a grid of topography that can be read into the IDV
(Vis5D topo, model topography, netCDF grid, USGS ASCII DEM), you
can select the field and use the 3D Surface->Topography display.
For the display above, you could:

- Open the Catalogs Data Chooser
- Under the Model Data
               Unidata IDD Model Data (netCDF)
                   NCEP RUC 80km CONUS model data
  section, select the "Latest NCEP RUC 80km CONUS model data" and
  click the "Add Source" button.
- in the Field's section of the Field Selector, expand the 2D
tab and find the "Geopotential height at surface of the earth"
field.
- For a display, expand the 3D Surface tab and select "Topography",
then click the "Create Display" button.

> 2) What determines the size of the three-dimensional box shown in the
> displays? Do I have control over the size of the box?

The map projection determines the region covered inside the box.  Since
it's a 3D box, it doesn't reach to the edges of the display so you can
rotate it and still be "outside the box".  You can zoom in with the
Shift key and the up arrow or moving the mouse forward (see the
Help->Zooming, Panning and Rotating menu).  You can change the aspect
ratio of the box using the View->Properties menu under the Aspect Ratio
tab.
 
> 3) Is it possible to turn off the geographic boundaries that appear
> outside the three-dimensional box?

Use the View->Show->Clip View At Box or the View->Properties dialog
and select the option there.  If you want that to be the default
for new display windows, use the Edit->Preferences dialog and
turn on that option under the Main Display tab.

> 4) Could you suggest some application articles in which the IDV system
> has been discussed? In looking through the FAQs, I noticed the
> following reference:
> 
> Murray, D., J. McWhirter, S. Wier, S. Emmerson, 2003: The Integrated
> Data Viewer: a Web-enabled application for scientific analysis and
> visualization. Preprints, 19th Intl Conf. on IIPS for Meteorology,
> Oceanography and Hydrology.
> 
> Are there others that I might find useful?

Most are papers given at the annual IIPS conference referenced above or
in Unidata newsletters which are not peer reviewed.  I could provide
those references if you want, but the one above is the best overview
at this point. If you are looking for something peer reviewed, you 
could point to:

William Hibbard, Curtis Rueden, Steve Emmerson, Tom Rink, David Glowacki, Tom 
Whittaker, Don Murray, David Fulker, John Anderson, Communications of the ACM 
48, No. 3, 2005, 98-104.

which references IDV in relation to VisAD. There's a Wikipedia entry. ;-)

If you have more questions, let me know.

Don Murray

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: ENQ-359474
Department: Support IDV
Priority: Normal
Status: Open