20010614: McIDAS-X and NEXRAD Level III products

>From: alan anderson <address@hidden>
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 200106142120.f5ELK1p12482 McIDAS NEXRAD

Alan,

>Tom, last March, you sent me a note indicating that we could use the
>adde site  adde.ucar.edu  as a way to start looking at radar products.
>(your message was on Mar. 6).  We will start this way before trying to 
>ingest the products ourselves with our ldm.

OK.

>I have followed your directions and things work ok, but when I plot 
>an image using the command you suggest, it is very small, only about 
>2" in diameter, in the upper left of my screen.
>
>Command used:  IMGDISP RTNEXRAD/NTP ID=MPX EU=BREF REFRESH='EG;MAP H
>COU=ALL ST=MN;BAR'

This is what it should be given the size of the NTP product:

IMGLIST RTNEXRAD/NTP ID=MPX FORM=EXP
Image file directory listing for:RTNEXRAD/NTP
 Pos Satellite/         Date       Time      Center      Res (km)   Image_Size
     sensor                                 Lat  Lon    Lat   Lon
 --- -------------  ------------  --------  ---- ----  ----- ----- ------------
 262  RADAR         14 JUN 01165  21:51:00     MPX
    Band: 7  Storm Total Rainfall                       2.00  2.00   230 x  232
     proj: 1234 created: 2001165 215400  memo: Strm Tot Rain [IN] Precip Mode
     type:NEXR     cal type:RAW
     offsets:  data=    1024 navigation=  256 calibration=  768 auxillary=  768
     doc length:   0   cal length:   0   lev length:   0 PREFIX=   0
     valcod:          0 zcor:  0 avg-smp: N
     start yyddd: 2001165  start time:215135  start scan:    0
     lcor:    1  ecor:     1  bytes per pixel: 1  ss:  7
     Resolution Factors (base=1):   Line=    1.0   Element=    1.0
IMGLIST: done

Also, I would recommend using the PRET enhancement for the NTP (Total 
Precipitation products).

>I expect there is a way to blowup or magnify the image, but using MAG n  n
>in my command did not have any effect.

>1.  Suggestions on how to enlarge the image

The invocation of IMGDISP that you should try is:

IMGDISP RTNEXRAD/NTP ID=MPX STA=MPX EU=PRET MAG=2 REFRESH='EG;MAP X 5 COU=ALL 
ST=MN;MAP H 1 WID=2;BAR'

>2.  A steer to find the list of possible products, e.g. NTP is storm total
>precip, 
>    what about the others ?  Where do I find the definitions for thing like 
>    NOV,  NCR  ...  I looked in the email archives, but did not find what I
>need.

Try DSINFO IMAGE RTNEXRAD:

DSINFO IMAGE RTNEXRAD

        Dataset Names of Type: IMAGE in Group: RTNEXRAD

Name         NumPos   Content
------------ ------   --------------------------------------
N0R           9999    Base Reflectivity Tilt 1
N0S           9999    Storm-Rel Mean Vel Tilt 1
N0V           9999    Radial Velocity Tilt 1
N0Z           9999    248 nm Base Reflectifity
N1P           9999    1-hour Surface Rainfall
N1R           9999    Base Reflectivity Tilt 2
N1S           9999    Storm-Rel Mean Vel Tilt 2
N1V           9999    Radial Velocity Tilt 2
N2R           9999    Base Reflectivity Tilt 3
N2S           9999    Storm-Rel Mean Vel Tilt 3
N3R           9999    Base Reflectivity Tilt 4
NCR           9999    Composite Reflectivity
NET           9999    Echo Tops
NTP           9999    Storm Total Rainfall
NVL           9999    Vertical Liquid H2O

DSINFO -- done

NOTE: there are products in this list that are not yet being sent in
NOAAPORT (and hence not in the IDD feed).  I went ahead and defined the
products that will be there since the NWS said that they would be
introduced back in March (they were on a test basis and then were
discontinued until there were some kinks worked out at NWS forecast
offices).

The products that are there now are:

N0R           9999    Base Reflectivity Tilt 1
N0S           9999    Storm-Rel Mean Vel Tilt 1
N0V           9999    Radial Velocity Tilt 1
NCR           9999    Composite Reflectivity
NTP           9999    Storm Total Rainfall
NVL           9999    Vertical Liquid H2O

Also be aware that not all of the products will be there for each station
all of the time (e.g., if the radar is not operating in precip/storm
mode, there should be no NTP products).

To see what radars are available to display, run:

IMGLIST RTNEXRAD/N0R ID=LIST

>My question is how do I save am image product on MCIDAS ?  
>Clicking on the file tab  just brings  the message that 
>IMGSAVE is not  available yet.  

>Any other way to save images ?

You can save any display in McIDAS in a variety of formats using the
FRMSAVE command.  The formats currently supported are:

GIF  - GIF (tm)
PPM  - Portable Pixmap Metafile
BMP  - used in Windows
JPG  - Jpeg
PS   - PostScript (tm)
CPS  - Color PostScript

The syntax of FRMSAVE is:

FRMSAVE frame fname FORM=output format

Example:

FRMSAVE 1 MPX.GIF
FRMSAVE 1 MPX.JPG FORM=JPG
etc.

Tom