20010529: McIDAS output formats -GOES-10 - raw sensor counts? navigation information?

>From: "Scott Gennari" <address@hidden>
>Organization: University of Hawaii
>Keywords: 200105300133.f4U1XDp04854 McIDAS

Scott,

>I'm a staff member at University of Hawaii and am 
>exploring the possibility of using McIDAS to 
>generate basic georeferenced, research-quality images 
>from our GOES-10 data that we receive directly.

OK.

>We have a program that converts our GOES-10 GVAR data into
>McIDAS area files and McIDAS can read and display them
>properly.

What is your ingest system?  If it is a TeraScan system, could I get
the source code for the conversion program that you are using?

>What it's not clear to me yet is if McIDAS is the right tool
>to use for what is required. Area files are produced for
>each GVAR channel on GOES-8 and GOES-10.

Imager and sounder?

>I'll just list what I require as an output and maybe
>you could make some comments on compatability with McIDAS.

OK.

>1) image centered on lat/lon
>2) geoferenced i.e., mercator projection (not required but desirable)
>3) lat/lon of each pixel (or 4 corners) dumped to a seprate file
>4) output pixel value in raw sensor counts (10 bit) or calibrated to file 
>5) automation of this procedure
>
>
>McIDAS can easily handle 1+2. Not so sure about
>3+4 and as a result 5.

McIDAS supports all of the above.  3) and 4) can be done using the AXFORM
routine.  5) can be done since any McIDAS routine can be included in
either McIDAS scripts (BATCH or McBASI) or Unix shell scripts.  In either
case, the McIDAS scheduler can be used to kick processing off on a timed
basis, or Unix cron can be used to do the same thing.

>We basically need the ability to dump a displayed image
>to a flat binary file without using 8-bit gif/jpeg
>type formats.

OK.  The other thing that is available in McIDAS is the ability to save a
displayed image in a 24-bit format, PPM.  This is doable by the the
FRMSAVE routine.

>We need to be able to output a sensor
>calibration value for each pixel (Temp brighness/albedo) 
>or the raw sensor count (apply our own calibration later).
>This will require more than 8 bits.

I understand.  I believe that AXFORM will do the job.

>For image navigation, we could get away with dumping 
>the lat/lon of the four corners and the center pixel,
>but would prefer a way of dumping lat/lon for each pixel 
>in the image.

This is how AXFORM works.  The navigation information will be in a different
file than the value information, but it will be done pixel-by-pixel.

>If we use mercator, the four corners would be
>enough. If other projection, we'd need lat/lon for every
>pixel dumped to a seperate file somehow.
>
>I also to automate this.

Again, any McIDAS process can be scripted.

>Thanks for your time.

Please let me know if you have more questions.  Also, you can get online
help from any McIDAS application by running:

HELP application

Examples:

HELP AXFORM
HELP FRMSAVE

Tom Yoksas

>From address@hidden Wed May 30 20:26:02 2001
>Subject: Re: 20010529: McIDAS output formats -GOES-10 - raw sensor counts? 
>navigation information? 

Hi Tom,

Thanks for getting back to me.

re: What is your ingest system?  If it is a TeraScan system, could I get
the source code for the conversion program that you are using?

>It's a homebrew Linux-based system. Our GOES-8/10/GMS-5 HDF data
>are found on the various NASA mirror sites.

>ftp://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/Weather
>ftp://geo.gsfc.nasa.gov/Weather/

>A group at NASA/MSFC wrote
>from fortran code to to convert our HDF
>data into McIDAS area files. They make
>the McIDAS data availabe at:

>ftp://geo.gsfc.nasa.gov/Weather/GOES-10/McIDAS_areas  for example

>I have a copy of the code and McIDAS reads these data without problem.

re: Imager and sounder?

>Sorry, Imager (GVAR).

re: McIDAS can do the jobs you ask about

>Great, this is promising indeed.

re: PPM output via frmsave

>Good to know.

>Much Thanks,
>Scott