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The Unidata Program's transition to Java, as described in its proposal "Unidata: 2003" presents a unique opportunity for the Unidata Users Community to help shape a new suite of analysis applications for the atmospheric sciences. Two Unidata groups are collaborating on the development of such a suite of platform-independent applications; the Meteorological Applications (MetApps) Task Force, a group of active users selected to represent the broad community, and the Developers at the Unidata Program Center.

As part of a user centered design process, these two groups have complementary sets of goals relating to the MetApps project; the Task Force have a set of goals related to the needs of users, and the developers have a set of goals related to creating the desired applications in a way that will be easy to adapt and support.

The MetApps Task Force has been charged to work with Unidata staff in the development of the next generation of applications software for the educational and research community in the atmospheric sciences. The goals of the MetApps Task Force are:

1. To develop a vision statement that seriously explores the evolving capabilities of technology and changes in teaching and research approaches over the next decade and how their merger will influence overall requirements for applications software.

2. To cooperatively participate with the Unidata Program Center in the development of Java prototype applications for meteorology and atmospheric science. This will be accomplished by:

   • Participating in the selection of prototype projects,
   • Specifying user requirement through the development of use cases,

   • Testing each iteration of a prototype and providing feedback to the developers.

3. To facilitate communication with and input from the Unidata Community regarding the Java development effort.

1. Deliver turn-key platform-independent applications for the analysis and visualization of meteorological data. These applications must provide and extend the most important capabilities of currently-available applications such as GEMPAK, GARP, and McIDAS. Use of these applications should require no knowledge of Java or component architectures.

2. Deliver easily installed executables, user documentation, and test cases for the turn-key applications.

3. Identify or create a component-oriented framework that supports construction of custom applications from components used to build the turn-key applications. This framework should be useful to create new combinations of components that provide subsets of the capabilities of the turn-key applications, connect them in unanticipated ways, or provide tailored mini-applications for embedding in educational materials. Use of these components may require knowledge of component architectures or Java.

4. Deliver full source code, class documentation, and test cases for the MetApps components.

5. Enlist other developers in enhancing components and developing new components for the framework by providing an archive, mailing list, developers' forums, documentation, web site, and support for the components.

In September, 2002, the MetApps development effort released the Integrated Data Viewer (IDV). This freely available framework and application meets many of the goals listed above.