20000804: McIDAS MCGUI mapping problem (cont.)

>From: David Fitzgerald <address@hidden>
>Organization: Millersville University of Pennsylvania
>Keywords: 200008031759.e73HxiT13264 McIDAS MCGUI MAP VIRT9300

Dave,

>Here is the output on the GUI command window for a map that did not display 
>correctly.  The image is correct, just the map is wrong.  This is true for all
>image products, the correct image is displayed, just the wrong map, and always
>the same map is display.

OK.

>The image I loaded was a GOES-E visible image.  
>
>BATCH USACONF 17 LALO SVF CONF X NO EG "BKGMAP.BAT
>EG B 17
>Erased image and graphic frame(s) 17-17
>GU REST GRAPHIC 17 DEV=NNN
>MAP DEF 8 LALO -2 INT=20 20 DASHSET=1 X 5 LAT=20.83 49.88 LON=78 137.97 SLON=1
> 05 
>PRO=CONF X X GRA=17 BOX=YES 8 VIRT=9300
>MAP: completed frame  17
>EG B 17
>Erased image and graphic frame(s) 17-17
>BATCH: BATCH done /software/mcidas/data/BKGMAP.BAT
>LWU DEL VIRT9000
>LWU:  File deleted: VIRT9000
>EG 11 1
>Erased graphic frame(s) 11-11
>ALOOP 140 149 11 1 EC 32 82 -2 -2 MAP=YES H 9000 EU=IMAGE.ET SU=X LIMIT=12 
>DWELL=3 10 BAR=VER X X X 7 X X X SF=YES
>BEGIN TV LOAD PROCESSING FOR FRAME  11
>Processing completed for frame= 11
>Done
>Done
>ALOOP: Done

OK, I understand the problem.  The MCGUI uses as a scratch file
VIRT9000.  This file should be created, used, and destroyed in the
user's McIDAS-X working directory.  What was happening was that there
was a copy of VIRT9000 in the /software/mcidas/data directory:

/software/mcidas/data% ls -al VIRT9000
-rw-rw-r--   1 dfitz    programs  277528 May  1 17:35 VIRT9000

This file was owned by you and not writable by anyone else.  It was
_the_ copy of VIRT9000 that users MCGUIs were trying to use by virtue of the
users MCPATH (~user/mcidas/data:/software/mcidas/data:/software/mcidas/help).
So, MCGUI was trying to delete the file and then create a new one with the
user's map in it, but the deletion was failing and the map in the file
was being used over and over again.

The solution?  I logged into snowball as 'mcidas' and delete data/VIRT9000.
Now users' MCGUIs should put up correct maps on top of their images.

This MCPATH stuff, while being pretty powerful has a number of gotchas.
This one is a good example of this.  We can hardwire around this problem
for each user by having each user add a REDIRECTion for VIRT9000:

REDIRECT ADD VIRT9000 ".

On another topic, the /etc/hosts file defines the name of breeze as
simply breeze (same for twister).  It would be much better if these
were the full hostanmes (e.g., breeze.millersv.edu).  This may be what
is causing my MCGUI reparenting problem when displays are set to come
back to the UPC.

Tom

>From address@hidden Fri Aug  4 12:45:00 2000
>Subject: RE: 20000804: McIDAS MCGUI mapping problem (cont.)

Tom,

Thanks for your help.  I actually accidentally/on-purpose do not have the
fully qualified host names in my /etc/hosts file.  The "reason" being is
that our domainname is changing from millersv.edu to millersville.edu, and I
want to update my NIS+ server with the new domain name (which means I have
to reinstall it.)  Anyway I am in the process of doing that and if I have
the fully qualified hostnames I get a bunch of warning messages in my logs.
I will be re-adding the fully qualified names as soon as the NIS+ server is
rebuilt.  

Once again, Thanks!  If you r ver in Lancaster, or I'm back in Boulder, I'll
buy you some beers!

Dave