Re: Visualizing model output

Hi Steve,

> One of the goals of our current project in supporting NetCDF is to
> be able to visualize the output of multidimensional simulation
> models in ArcGIS.
>  
> Can you guys tell me what the most commonly used model outputs are,
> and post or send some examples of these.  MM5 and GMT are the ones I
> hear most about, but I don't know if they are the most common or its
> just a reflection of the people I have talked to.

MM5 is certainly popular, but GMT would not go on our list.  The WRF
model is becoming more widely used and will eventually supplant MM5
for running local models.

Current model output data in netCDF form is available from

  http://motherlode.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/ldm/genweb?decoded/netcdf/GRIB/

(the GRIB name in the directory just means it was decoded and stitched
together from the original GRIB products).  The model abbreviations
are in the second component of the file names (for example
2004120512_eta_211.nc refers to ETA model output for the model run at
2004-12-05 at 12:00Z over the "211" grid, but all this filename
metadata is also represented in the netCDF file).

I would suggest you focus your efforts on one or more of the following
models:

 - ETA (being renamed "NAM")
 - GFS (used to be named "AVN")
 - RUC
 - MRF
 - NGM
 - NOGAPS and COAMPS from the Navy

Here's a gallery of plots and animations we produce with our Integrated
Data Visualizer (IDV) application from this model data (as well as
other data sources):

  http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/IDV/gallery/index.html

Feel free to ignore the 3D examples above.  They make attractive
visualizations, but researchers and educators still make much more use
the 2D representations.

> Russ - thanks for putting up the website of sample data, this has
> been very useful to us, and I suspect to other developers as well.

I still consider it a draft and haven't announced it widely yet, but
I'll make it known on the netCDF mailing list soon.

> Jennifer - have you ever used the ArcMap style set of weather
> symbols?  There is a symbol palette of things like line symbols for
> front, wind vanes, point symbols for different types of weather
> phenomena, etc. I didn't realize until recently these were in the
> software, and I don't know if anyone else in the atmospheric
> community knows about it either, since I don't think I've ever seen
> an example of someone using this.
>  
> So what I'm thinking would be a great example to illustrate some
> functionality would be to have a standard model output dataset and
> from its native NetCDF format, display a color coded raster or
> temperature or pressure, with wind vanes over the top of it, and
> animate this through time.  Do you think this would be a good effort
> to help the community understand what is possible?  If you have some
> additional ideas on this let me know.  I'm just trying to come up
> with an example for the meeting in January that is more interesting
> than just displaying a single variable through time, which is the
> example I show people today.

--Russ

_____________________________________________________________________

Russ Rew                                         UCAR Unidata Program
address@hidden          http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/russ