20020125: McIDAS install at NIU (cont.)

>From: Gilbert Sebenste <address@hidden>
>Organization: NIU
>Keywords: 200201102312.g0ANCeN20508 McIDAS-X 7.804

Gilbert,

re: needing to rewrite sounding server

>Ouch. Best wishes to you on that. I wonder what they did? I know you do...

The problem occurs when ADDE server calls are chained.  The current
implementation of the sounding server makes server calls to the POINT
server to get mandatory and then significant level data.  The idea was
a good one since it allows for adding access to additional datasets
with vertical structure (like 3D grids), but the implementation is
somewhat of a mess (at least it is not elegant).  Something in a server
running a server is tickling something in Linux.  Interestingly, this
problem does not occur on any other OS! And, that includes other PC
OSes like Solaris x86 and FreeBSD (I am playing with a port to MacOS-X
(Darwin) in my leisure hours).

re: delete $MCDATA/MCTABLE.TXT

>Bingo! That did it. Two more problems though...
>
>Say I want a custom image enhancement. I click on the "Image" bar, and a 
>box pops up and it says "Error: can't read "enhNames": no such variable."

Which action exactly are you talking about?  The Image Enhancement action
out of the Configure drop down and the short cut button with the artist
palette both run the same Tcl/Tk procedure.  In this procedure, a list
of all enhancements is generated with an 'EU LIST' command.  So, if
there is a problem in your session it must mean that an EU LIST returns
nothing.  To test this, please do the following and reporty the results
back to me:

o left click on the button with the keyboard icon (I recognize the
  icon, but some don't; the button is the one just to the left of
  the button with the 'Z' on it).

  Clicking the left button on this icon opens up the McIDAS-X GUI
  Console.  It is my primary replacement for the regular McIDAS
  Text and Command window.

o run the command:

  EU LIST

  from the GUI Console

o cut the output from the window and past it in an email reply to me
  (cutting is done in the normal X manner: tripple left mouse click
  over a line and drag to the end of the text you want to copy into
  the X buffer)

>Then I have the option of clicking OK, which means I have to start all 
>over again, stack trace or skip messages. What's wrong?

The output from 'EU LIST' should tell us what is wrong.  The TclTk
procedure simply uses the output from two McIDAS commands to generate
a listing for you to select an enhancement from: 'SEE EU.CORE' followed
by 'EU LIST'.  If either of these commands return nothing, then there
is a problem with the installation; what that would be I can't say yet.

>Second, I also want to have a default of "2" on NEXRAD zooms and "3" on 
>satellite imagery. How do I do that?

OK, good question.  Here is what you do now (this will change in the
future):

o CD to your McIDAS working directory.  For 'mcidas' this would be
  ~mcidas/workdata.  For all other users, this would be ~/mcidas/data.

  example for the user 'mcidas':

  cd ~/workdata

o copy ~mcidas/ADDEIMAGE.CORE to your your McIDAS working directory:

  cp ~mcidas/data/ADDEIMAGE.CORE

o edit your local copy of ADDEIMAGE.CORE.  The configuration options
  you want to change are in the RTNEXRAD section.  Here are the first
  few lines from that section:

RTNEXRAD
REM Descriptor   GUI Label                          Frame  Load   Location    
Mag     Map(s)              Mcol  Wid   Mbrk Enh     Strtch  BarLab BarSU 
discrete
    N0R          "Base Reflectivity Tilt 1"         ?MFRMS LINELE " 230  230" " 
1  1" "OUTLUSAM OUTLCNTY" "1 5" "1 2" "2"  BREF    NONE    C      "X       X"
    N1R          "Base Reflectivity Tilt 2"         ?MFRMS LINELE " 230  230" " 
1  1" "OUTLUSAM OUTLCNTY" "1 5" "1 2" "2"  BREF    NONE    C      "X       X"

  ...

  (The lines are long, so make your edit window 160 columns wide).

  To change the default magnification, change the values " 1 1" under the
  'Mag' column to " 2 2".  This will end up looking like:

RTNEXRAD
REM Descriptor   GUI Label                          Frame  Load   Location    
Mag     Map(s)              Mcol  Wid   Mbrk Enh     Strtch  BarLab BarSU 
discrete
    N0R          "Base Reflectivity Tilt 1"         ?MFRMS LINELE " 230  230" " 
2  2" "OUTLUSAM OUTLCNTY" "1 5" "1 2" "2"  BREF    NONE    C      "X       X"
    N1R          "Base Reflectivity Tilt 2"         ?MFRMS LINELE " 230  230" " 
2  2" "OUTLUSAM OUTLCNTY" "1 5" "1 2" "2"  BREF    NONE    C      "X       X"

   Make the changes for all of the products you want the default load to be
   '2'.

o after you are finished editing $MCDATA/ADDEIMAGE.CORE, then make those
  changes active in your MCGUI by:

  o click on the Configure drop down at the top of MCGUI and select
    'Load Image Display Defaults'

    This will pop up a widget that will allow you to choose the file
    to load settings from.

  o The list of directories on the left should be those listed in the
    MCPATH environment variable.  The first directory should be your
    MCDATA directory.

  o In the right box will be listed all files that match the regular
    expression '*.CORE".  Your new copy of ADDEIMAGE.CORE should be listed
    there.  Click on that copy of ADDEIMAGE.CORE.  

  o the selection line listed at the bottom of the widget should now
    reflect the fully qualified pathname of the new copy of ADDEIMAGE.CORE
    that you have copied and then edited.  Now click on the LOAD button.

After doing the above, the default load for the RTNEXRAD descriptors
that you changed should be what you set them to in your local copy of
ADDEIMAGE.CORE.

>Be happy! :-)

I'll try ;-)

Tom