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20020313: McIDAS inquiry

This archive contains answers to questions sent to Unidata support through mid-2025. Note that the archive is no longer being updated. We provide the archive for reference; many of the answers presented here remain technically correct, even if somewhat outdated. For the most up-to-date information on the use of NSF Unidata software and data services, please consult the Software Documentation first.

  • Subject: 20020313: McIDAS inquiry
  • Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 14:59:49 -0700
>From: Robert Dewey <address@hidden>
>Organization: ?
>Keywords: 200203132101.g2DL1ra05496 McIDAS ADDE

Robert,

>I have a few question regarding the ADDE. I have been getting all
>my data (up until now) through FTP servers from NOAA/other sources...But
>I believe I may have been overloading the servers with my data requests.
>
>Now, my question is...What exactly is the McIDAS ADDE?

Several years ago, McIDAS applications were reworked/rewritten to
recast them into a client-server arcitecture.  Clients, end user
applications, make request for data from servers that can run locally
(on the same machine in the users account; on the same machine in
a server account) or remotely (on machines that are accessible by
Tcp/Ip Ethernet.  This general recast of McIDAS was given the name
ADDE, which stands for Abstract Data Distribution Environment.

>I have
>installed McIDAS-X 7.8 and I was thinking about installing the ADDE
>also.

If you have installed McIDAS, you have installed ADDE capabilities.
If you want to configure your machine to be able to act as a remote ADDE
server, there is a little more work that needs to be done.  If you 
don't have data holdings that you want to make available to others
(or to yourself at a remote location or locally through a different
account), you need go no further.

>I am not with any university or other sites qualified for IDD
>access...so does this automatically disqualify me for getting data
>through the ADDE?

Not entirely.  There are a number of ADDE server sites that are
publically accessible.  Some of these are operated by Unidata, and
others Unidata and non-Unidata sites are doing so on a limited basis.
If a Unidata site wants to, it can provide you with access to its data
holdings through ADDE assuming, of course, that they are running
McIDAS; have setup the McIDAS ADDE remote server; are "publishing" data
(i.e., making one or more datasets available by ADDE); and do not deny
your access.

>Also...just out of curiosity...is all of this data compatable with
>GEMPAK?

No.  The imagery data that one can copy from an ADDE server to the
local machine will be compatible with GEMPAK since it will be in McIDAS
AREA format, and GEMPAK supports that format.  The POINT, GRID, and
TEXT data types supported by ADDE are not compatible with (in a format
that could be used by) GEMPAK.

Side note:

GEMPAK has traditionally not supported a number of the satellite
projections supported by McIDAS.  This situation will change
substantially in the next Unidata GEMPAK release since McIDAS code was
incorporated into that release in order to support more satellite
projections.

Tom Yoksas