20020512: REFRESH in McIDAS-X 7.8

>From: Steve Ochani <address@hidden>
>Organization: SUNY Nassau
>Keywords: 200205130007.g4D07oa03066 McIDAS IMGDISP

Steve,

>I'm using McIDAS 7.804 and I wish to display a sat. image loop in our weather 
>center window for people to see, because of this I need the loop to be updated.

OK.

>I was hoping to do this with the REFRESH command but it seems 7.8 doesn't come
>with it.  At least for me I'm getting the error "REFRESH not found"

Right.  REFRESH was sunset back in Version 7.7.

>Any suggestions on how to do this?

You can accomplish the same task using the SEQ= keyword in the IMGDISP
command.  You will need to kick off IMGDISP invocations by crontab
or the McIDAS scheduler and have update the imges kept in the
rang of frames specified as positional arguments to SEQ=.

HELP IMGDISP
IMGDISP -- Displays image data
   IMGDISP dataset frame <keywords>
   IMGDISP predprod <keywords>
Parameters:
   dataset | ADDE dataset name and position; specify as alias.position or
             group/descriptor.position; to use the default position,
             either enter "0" or omit the .position portion
             (no def for alias or group/descriptor, def=0 for position)
   frame | frame number to display image; specify "OPP" to display image
           on the opposite frame; use CYCLE and SEQ keywords to specify a
           range of frames for maintaining a loop of images (def=current)
   predprod | predefined product in the IMGDISP.* text file; see Remarks
Keywords:
*********************  Frame Positioning Keywords  ***********************

 ...

*********************  Loop Maintenance Keywords  ************************
   CYCle=inc bfra efra tol | update range of frames bfra-efra by displaying
                         the image in the frame determined by the formula:
                            frame=(modulus((time-tol)/inc,numfra))+bfra
                         see McIDAS User's Guide for details (inc def=1:00,
                         meaning a 1-hour increment; tol def=0, meaning no
                         time tolerance; no def for bfra,efra)
   SEQ=bfra efra | updates range of frames bfra-efra by displaying the
                   image in the frame following the frame with the most
                   recent image; selected frame overrides frame parameter

Tom