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[netCDF #IGD-438207]: degrees minutes and seconds

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  • Subject: [netCDF #IGD-438207]: degrees minutes and seconds
  • Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:25:56 -0700
> hello
>
> I am attempting to create netcdf files where the co-ordinates used are :
> latitude: degrees(int), minutes(int), seconds(float)
> longitude:  degrees(int), minutes(int), seconds(float)
> I have read through the documentation and searched forums and the
> internet and i have not found confirmation that this is possible or
> documentation of the syntax that may be used to represent  dimensions in
> this way
> most of the information I have read has coordinates defined in decimal
> degrees, which is not helping the work i am engaged in
> is there any assistance you can provide me in this matter?
> thank you
> mark
> Mark Hedley, Software Developer
> Met Office FitzRoy Road Exeter Devon EX1 3PB United Kingdom
> Tel: +44 (0)1392 884482
> Email: address@hidden Website: www.metoffice.gov.uk

Howdy Mark,

NetCDF is certainly capable of doing what you wish, but I would advise that you
follow a better convention for storing your lat/lon info (and other metadata).

The CF Conventions have already established a very useful and widely understood
by climate and visualization software. So why not just take the easy way out,
and use it? ;-)

http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-conventions/1.3/cf-conventions.html#latitude-coordinate

Since they do store lat/lon as floats, you would have to convert your
degrees/minutes/seconds to floats.

If you need to construct a display string with degrees/minutes/seconds, you can
convert back. If that's not good enough, you could consider storing the
necessary degrees/minutes/seconds string as a separate variable.

Please let me know if this doesn't help.

Thanks!

Ed


Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: IGD-438207
Department: Support netCDF
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed