[IDV #WRY-586577]: IDV - Error loading MADIS METARS

Bill-

> As for the time converter in Excel, if the time in the cell is 500 (which is 
> 00:05:00, or 5 minutes after 00 UTC) and you change the Excel format to time 
> or custom (h:mm:ss), it returns 00:00:00, not 00:05:00. Any suggestions?

Instead of Time, use Custom and an a Type of 000000.  That seems
to work.  Then you can use my original fmt of HHmmss

Don

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Unidata IDV Support [mailto:address@hidden]
> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 10:55 AM
> To: Bauman.Bill
> Cc: address@hidden; address@hidden
> Subject: [IDV #WRY-586577]: IDV - Error loading MADIS METARS
> 
> Hi Bill-
> 
> > Thanks for the effort on this. I've been playing around with my data files 
> > as well and came up with the attached file that works. When I saved the 
> > attached file as a .csv from Excel it doesn't have any spaces between the 
> > commas but it works fine.
> 
> The test file you sent today doesn't have any missing fields.  It's
> only when you have missing fields that this is a problem which was the
> case in the previous file you sent.  An alternative is to have
> a missing value in empty cells and use the miss= keyword in the header.
> 
> > Looks like I need to separate the original data file into multiple files 
> > based on sensor height. That's easy to do with a macro in Excel. It's 
> > important for me to be able to display one sensor height on the map at one 
> > time based on the way the forecasters issue and verify warnings.
> 
> I figured that.  My approach was just a kludge.
> 
> > I was just getting to the date/time issue - IDV needs to have the zeros 
> > added to each time so there are 8 digits per time (for HHmmss). I haven't 
> > yet figured out the easiest way to do a mass conversion of the times using 
> > an Excel macro. Also, the only way Excel will display zeros in front of 
> > other digits is to change the format of the number from "Number" to "Text" 
> > but that's easy to do as well. Did you "pad" the times with zeros manually 
> > just for the test or did you do it with a script - are you using Linux or 
> > Windows to manipulate the data?
> 
> vi is a wonderful tool. ;-)  I just did it manually to test.
> 
> > I also wrote a macro to add lat/lon. That's my last step in the process 
> > once I have the rest of the data file setup. I copy/paste once manually in 
> > Excel while recording the macro and then I can just run it as the last 
> > macro on the rest of the data files. The station ID's are a bit flaky. As 
> > you noticed in the "SIDE" column some say "SE" or "NW". That's because 
> > there are dual sensors on opposing sides of the towers on some towers 
> > because the tower itself will disturb the flow to the sensor. So if the 
> > winds are easterly, the forecasters will use the sensors on the SE side, 
> > not the NW side. So towers 20 and 21 are virtual - they are really tower 2 
> > where 20 is the NW side and 21 is the SE side (or vice versa). So tower 
> > locations 20 and 21 will use the lat/lon of tower 2. Same with tower 110: 
> > it has two virtual towers as 1101 and 1102. And there are others.
> >
> > The data is originally in ASCII text files. I'm just using Excel to 
> > manipulate the files with macros and then save them as .csv. It seems to be 
> > working okay - I just need to figure out how to convert the times to 8 
> > digits.
> 
> As your other note said, it's 6 digit time.  I just typed too many 00's. ;-)
> You can use the Excel date/time formatting to get something like 0:00:00 and
> then change the fmt string in the header to match what you use.  That worked 
> for
> me.
> 
> > Data retrieval, manipulation and display is always a long pole for the work 
> > we do. Once all the data is acquired, nicely formatted and displayed, the 
> > analysis doesn’t take so long. I've asked the rest of my staff to download 
> > and install IDV to start working with it. I intend to make that our primary 
> > display software rather than GEMPAK or GrADS. Can IDV be setup to 
> > automatically ftp real time data, produce maps and then be uploaded to a 
> > location (say a web site)?
> 
> Glad to hear that you are finding IDV useful.
> 
> One last note on this importing.  If you save the file off as a CSV without
> the header info and read it in to the IDV, you will be prompted with a dialog
> that allows you to set the header information.  The advantage here is that you
> can then save this off and use it as a resource to apply to other files of
> similar format.   This "wizard" still needs some work, but it might help
> you out.
> 
> Don
> 
> Ticket Details
> ===================
> Ticket ID: WRY-586577
> Department: Support IDV
> Priority: Normal
> Status: Open
> 
> 
> 
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: WRY-586577
Department: Support IDV
Priority: Normal
Status: Open