20010305: McIDAS-X upgrade from 7.5 at STC (cont.)

>From: alan anderson <address@hidden>
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 200102202133.f1KLXZL10511 McIDAS NEXRAD display

Alan,

>Everything seems to be fine with waldo.  

I agree.  I was using waldo's remote ADDE server for point source
and RTIMAGE data after the upgrade with no problems, so I figure
that things are OK.

>I can see upper air data to 13 mb on this morning's sounding 
>from Chanhassen (MSP).

Yup.  I guess that not many people will routinely look at data
above 100 mb, but it is nice to know that you can when desired.

>Also, MCGUI started for me with no problems.  Looked at some 
>image products.
>
>Regarding the tcl item,  when MCGUI failed, the error message said 
>it could not find  /home/mcidas/mcidas7.7/tcl/lib/tcl8.0/xfmbox.tcl 

Weird.

>I looked and found it in /home/mcidas/tcl/lib/tcl8.0/
>
>There was no /lib/tcl8.0/  under ~mcidas/mcidas7.7 so I created it.

I understand.  The problem is that you should not have had to do this.

>Anyway, as I read your comment,  xfmbox.tcl was where it was supposed to
>be in the first place.  That makes the error message hard to figure out, but
>as long as things are working, I will not worry.  

Not worrying is a good plan :-)  I removed the directory that you created,
so the install/upgrade now looks "normal".

>I also see that if I would have followed the install directions for upgrades,
>I would have caught the other things.  All the machines I have been working
>on lately have been new installs, so that is my excuse.  

I only added the bit about the upgrade procedure being documented for
those who might read the archives in the future.

>Now, back to the radar issue.  
>
>I am not sure about how many stations the data will come from, but we want to
>look at storm total rainfall.  I believe that is the only product of interest.

OK, this is supported by the ADDE server, so you are in good shape.

>Assuming we can display the data,

You can.

>will we be able to look at specific values
>on the display, along with the lat/long values,

You can always use IMGPROBE to look at specific values of a display.
What may be useful is to use the CONT (contour) option of IMGPROBE.  This
will allow you to overlay the display with contours of the data in
the unit you are interested in.

>(analogous to looking at the 
>brightness values for specific postions on a satellite image) ?

The direct readout in MCGUI is only for brightness.  IMGRPOBE is
the best way to interrogate the image.  Also, annotating the image with
a data BAR will give you a nice legend.

>That is what the student wants to be able to extract from the files.

IMGPROBE is the key.

>I will read your email of 3/02 more carefully, and 
>get a start at defining a directory structure.

OK.  I strongly recommend that you adopt my approach.  Now that I know
that you are going to be getting Storm Total Precipitation products, I
can be more specific about what the directory structure would look like:

/NCDC/RADAR/<id>/<product type> -> /NCDC/RADAR/MPX/NTP

Again, the entries in the ~mcidas/workdata/NCDCNEXR.CFG configuration file
would look like:

DIRMASK=/NCDC/RADAR/\ID/\TYPE
FILEMASK=*\ID*.*
IDMASK=*

The DSSERVE command that would setup access to the Storm Total Precip.
products would be:

DSSERVE ADD RTNEXRAD/NTP NEXR 1 9999 TYPE=IMAGE INFO=NCDCNEXR.CFG "Storm Total 
Rainfall

>If there is a 'quick' way to look at just one file,  I would appreciate it.

The following setup should be pretty quick:

<login as the user 'mcidas'>
mkdir /NCDC
mkdir /NCDC/RADAR
mkdir /NCDC/RADAR/MPX
mkdir /NCDC/RADAR/MPX/NTP
cp KMPX20000416_1034_00.580 /NCDC/RADAR/MPX/NTP

<create ~mcidas/workdata/NCDCNEXR.CFG with the three lines above>

<run the DSSERVE command above from the McIDAS Text and Command window in
a McIDAS-X session started as the user McIDAS>

>The sample of files we have already unpacked was listed in my email to you 
>on  Fri. 2 March.

Got it.

>Thanks

Please give the above a try.  It really should take no more than 5
minutes to get going (barring typos).

Tom