20050406: FNEXRAD product question

>From:  "John Hobbie" <address@hidden>
>Organization:  NMSU/NSBF
>Keywords:  200504061914.j36JEev2008027 ldm-mcidas FNEXRAD 

Hi John,

>The other day I noticed that the pqact.conf file processes the FNEXRAD product
>  
>      ^rad/NEXRCOMP/(...)/(...)_(........)_(....)
>
>twice.  LDM puts one copy in  data/gempak/images/sat/NEXRCOMP/1k/.......
>and puts a second copy of the data in  data/gempak/nport/RADAR/........
>according to the standard pqact.conf configuration.   It appears that
>in the second instance, it is being processed by a McIDAS decoder.  Thus
>two copies of the images are being saved.
>
>Gempak/GARP by default uses the data found in the first location.
>
>Just for laughs, I modified the Garp_defaults file to point to the second
>location.  GARP wouldn't work if I placed the path under an image type;
>I tried G8.  But it worked great when I placed the path under the "nowrad"
>data type. 
>
>So, do we really need two copies of these data?

GEMPAK can use the image in both PNG-compressed and uncompressed
forms.  McIDAS can only use the image in the uncompressed form.  The
second action you refer to above is likely one that runs the
'ldm-mcidas' decoder pngg2gini.

If you want to use the images in both GEMPAK and McIDAS, you need to
decode it using the ldm-mcidas decoder 'pngg2gini'.

Cheers,

Tom
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