20000925: MCIDAS over idd (cont.)

>From: Mike Trexler <address@hidden>
>Organization: NCSU
>Keywords: 200009250008.e8P084b11689 ldm-mcidas

Mike,

>Thanks for your help.  As you guessed, I did not get your email, and in
>fact have been having trouble with a couple of different addresses over
>the past couple of months.  All seems well now and I'm settled with:
>address@hidden.

OK.  I updated all of the Unidata email lists you are subscribed to
use the 'address@hidden' address.

>As for the mcidas stuff...I guess the procrasinating's over!

Yup :-)

>I've download the binary dist. of ldm-mcidas.  Two questions:

>1) so I have to be running mcidas-x to use the pnga2area decoder??

No, absolutely not.  If you want to build the ldm-mcidas decoders from
source, you have to have the McIDAS-X library to link against, but since
you are using a binary distribution, you don't have to worry about this.

2) Once I untar the dist. and set up my pqact.conf file does it know to
>where to look for the pnga2area,

No.

>or am I suppose to specify an explicit pathname?  For example:
>
>MCIDAS  ^pnga2area Q. CA .... (.*) (.*) (.*) (........) (....)
>        PIPE    -close
>        pnga2area /data/ldm/gempak/nport/SOUNDER/\3/CTP/CTP_\4_\5
>
>is your example, but do I need:
>
>MCIDAS  ^pnga2area Q. CA .... (.*) (.*) (.*) (........) (....)
>        PIPE    -close
>        /meaculpa/users/ldm-mcidas-7.6.4/bin/pnga2area /data/ldm/gempak/nport/ 
> SOUNDER/\3/CTP/CTP_\4_\5

Your transferrance of my example looks correct as far as the specification
of where to find pnga2area.  It does not, however, tell pnga2area where
to find the files SATANNOT and SATBAND.  It needs these files to interpret
information in the AREA file in a "human readable" manner.

I strongly recommend (if you havn't already done so) to do the following:

<as 'ldm' (assumes that the home for 'ldm' is /usr/local/ldm)>
cd /usr/local/ldm
mkdir decoders
<edit .cshrc and add /usr/local/ldm/decoders to your PATH>
cp /meaculpa/users/ldm-mcidas-7.6.4/bin/pnga2area /usr/local/ldm/decoders
cp /meaculpa/users/ldm-mcidas-7.6.4/etc/SAT* /usr/local/ldm/etc

Then redo and finish the pqact.conf entry:

MCIDAS  ^pnga2area Q0 CA .* (.*) (.*) (.*) (........) (....)
        PIPE    -close
        pnga2area -v
        -a /usr/local/ldm/etc/SATANNOT
        -b /usr/local/ldm/etc/SATBAND
        /data/ldm/gempak/nport/SOUNDER/\3/CTP/CTP_\4_\5

Note that I changed:

o Q. to Q0  I did this to be more specific about the product.  CIMSS products
  are tagged with the 'Q0' time designator

o '....' to '.*' in the pattern line.  The current default AREA file number
  for CIMSS products is 4 digits long; for the "regular" GOES images it is
  3 digits long.  These lengths should not be considered to be invariant;
  they can change in the future.

o added '-a' abd '-b' flags to tell pnga2area where SATANNOT and SATBAND can
  be found.

This can serve as the example for the CIMSS products.  You will want
something else for the other GOES iamges.

An action for the GOES-East IR images might look like:

MCIDAS  ^pnga2area Q1 UI .* (.*) (.*) (.*) (........) (....)
        PIPE    -close
        pnga2area -v
        -a /usr/local/ldm/etc/SATANNOT
        -b /usr/local/ldm/etc/SATBAND
        /data/ldm/gempak/nport/IMAGER/\3/IR/IR_\4_\5

and so on.

The correspondence between "McIDAS ROUTE.SYS product code" and product is:

  Code     Description                       
 ---------+------------------------------------
   CA      CIMSS Cloud Top Pressure
   CB      CIMSS Precipitable Water
   CC      CIMSS Sea Surface Temperature
   CD      CIMSS Lifted Index
   CE      CIMSS CAPE
   CF      CIMSS Ozone
   UA      Educational floater I
   UB      GOES-West Western US Water Vapor
   UC      Educational floater II
   UI      GOES-East North America Infrared
   UR      Research floater
   UV      GOES-East North America Visible
   UW      GOES-East North America Water Vapor
   UX      Global Mollweide Infrared Composite
   UY      Global Mollweide Water Vapor Composite
   U1      Antarctic composite
   U3      Manually Digitized Radar
   U5      GOES-West Western US Infrared
   U9      GOES-West Western US Visible

After you have updated your pqact.conf file, you should check its
integrity by running 'ldmadmin pqactcheck' (you need to be running a
relative recent version of ldmadmin to be able to do this).  After
there are no errors indicated, you need to send a HUP to pqact to tell
it to reread pqact.conf (current versions of ldmadmin support this
through 'ldmadmin pqactHUP').

>I skimmed the webpage, but didn't readily see the answer.  Sorry

Please let me know if the above isn't enough to get you going.

Tom