[McIDAS #XMY-392143]: Mcidas-SFCPLOT behavior?

Hi Bill,

I have included the information I sent in my first email to you this
morning. Please use the PLOTWXS definition I sent in the second email;
you can safely ignore the PLOT/TEST definition included in the first note
below.

Notes: 

- I am not resending the attachment included in my first reply
- in the first email I was incorrect in thinking that there was a bug
  in plotting current weather as symbols in a PLOT

Previously I sent:

> Long time no hear...
> 
> I apologize for not getting back to you immediately on your inquiry.  It
> took me a bit of time to figure out a workaround for the problem you are
> reporting.
> 
> re:
> > This is probably something I should have learned in kindergarten, but I
> > was watching birds that day:
> 
> :-)  Actually, the McIDAS training sessions have never spent enough time
> going through the use of context files.  I am very happy that you were
> curious enough to learn about them!  Have you looked at creating your own
> custom maps using the MAP context files?  If you decide to look into creating
> your own definitions in MAP.SITE or MAP.USER, please be aware that a bug
> was just found where one can create a MAP definition in MAP.(USER|SITE|CORE)
> that works nicely with MAP, but will result in an error when specifying the
> MAP mnemonic as a MAP name for PTDISP and PTCON (which get run by all
> macro commands like SFCPLOT, SFCCON, RAOBPLOT, RAOBCON, etc.).  The point
> I am trying to make can be easily illustrated using the map definition
> for CHINA that I included in the MAP.CORE file:
> 
> Try:
> 
> SFCPLOT T CHINA
> 
> You should get the text output:
> 
> Accessing Dataset Name = RTPTSRC/SFCHOURLY.ALL
> PTDISP: Invalid MAP name specified = CHINA
> SFCPLOT: PTDISP command failed
> SFCPLOT failed, rc=1
> 
> MAP, however, is perfectly happy with this definition:
> MAP CHINA
> MAP: Completed frame 5
> 
> And, even more strange is that SFCPLOT can use the CHINA map just plotted
> when doing an overlay:
> 
> ERASE
> MAP CHINA
> SFCPLOT T OLAY
> 
> I have reported this inconsistency to SSEC.
> 
> Back to your problem...
> 
> > SFCPLOT with the parameter PLOT puts the "Present Weather" in text form
> > (I use SFCPLOT PLOT PTYPE=PMSL).  I would prefer symbols.
> 
> This appears to be a bug.  The current weather is _supposed_ to be plotted
> as symbols given the specification in SFCPLOT.CORE:
> 
> PLOT   UNIT=AMERICAN METRIC \
> AMERICAN='F F X X MB KTS' METRIC='C C X X MB KTS' \
> COLOR='2 2 3 3 3 4 3 2' \
> FORMAT='I3 I3 SYMB SYMB K3 FLAG X I1' \
> LSIZE='6 6 6 6 6 9 5 6' \
> OFFSET='-8 -12 8 -12 0 -8 -20 -8 5 X X 8 5 X 14' \
> LOC=+ \
> TITLE=X 3 \
> FONT=' '\
> ISFC='T TD WX1 WX2 PSL WIND ID CIGC' \
> SVCA='T TD WX1 WX2 PSL WIND ID CCL' \
> SYN= na \
> ISHP=na
> 
> The specification of 'SYMB' in FORMAT= is specifying that the weather
> should be plotted as symbols.  The PLOT option used to work correctly;
> I will investigate why it is no longer plotting symbols and will likely
> submit a bug report to SSEC.
> 
> > Individual
> > plotting of symbols and values is possible to build a station plot
> > (e.g., SFCPLOT WXS; SFCPLOT T; SFCPLT TD), but things like offset from
> > station location are a pain if one wants to plot more than one parameter.
> > You have already done all the work for me with the PLOT option.  I
> > just want symbolic present weather.
> 
> OK.
> 
> > So, reading the friendly manual, I copied SFCPLOT.CORE to SFCPLOT.SITE,
> > and under the PLOT.PMSL definition started playing around, changing WX1
> > to WXS (and WXC) for the various data sources, with no success.
> 
> The correct formalism is to specify plotting of the current weather using
> 'WX1 WX2' and FORMAT of 'SYMB SYMB'.  This is the way it is done for WXS in
> SFCPLOT.CORE:
> 
> WXS    FORMAT='SYMB SYMB' OFFSET='0 -4 0 8' \
> ISFC='WX1 WX2' SVCA='WX1 WX2' SYN='WX1 WX2' ISHP='WXP'
> 
> > At this
> > point I will stop, because although FORTRAN format statements are still
> > something I understand, the total construction of the SFCPLOT.CORE is
> > only vaguely interpretable by me.  (Actually, if I had just gone ahead
> > and built my own file of SFCPLOT commands with individual parameters and
> > offsets empirically determined, I'd be done by now.  But I feel like I'm
> > missing something, and I wonder if there's a more elegant way to
> > accomplish this.)
> 
> I played around with the PLOT specification that I copied to my 
> $MCDATA/SFCPLOT.USER
> file (SFCPLOT.USER is used in perferance to SFCPLOT.SITE and SFCPLOT.CORE, but
> it is intended to contain user-specific definitions.  Your use of SFCPLOT.SITE
> is preferred when working as the user 'mcidas' who intends to setup defaults
> that will be used by all McIDAS users).  I found that by putting the weather
> symbol definitions first, I could get the plot I wanted.  Here is my 
> SFCPLOT.USER
> entry for a parameter I called TEST:
> 
> TEST   UNIT=AMERICAN METRIC \
> AMERICAN='X X F F MB KTS' \
> METRIC='X X C C MB KTS' \
> FORMAT='SYMB SYMB I3 I3 K3 FLAG X I1' \
> OFFSET='0 -7 -20 -8 -8 -12 8 -12 -8 5 X X 8 5 X 14' \
> LSIZE='6 6 6 6 6 10 6 6' \
> ISFC='WX1 WX2 T TD PSL WIND ID CIGC' \
> SVCA='WX1 WX2 T TD PSL WIND ID CCL' \
> SYN='WX1 WX2 T TD PSL WIND ID' \
> ISHP='WXP T TD PSL WIND IDA'
> 
> I would recommend using the TEST definition as a starting point from which you
> can tweek settings.  After you have the look you want, simply change the name
> TEST to PLOT in your SFCPLOT.SITE file.
> 
> I have attached a plot of TEST values over Colorado this morning (since 
> several
> stations are reporting light snow).
> 
> > Thanks.
> 
> No worries.  Thanks for identifying the PLOT bug.  I never use the PLOT 
> option,
> so I had not seen it.

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: XMY-392143
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed