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Table of Contents
Internet Data Distribution: Here We Go!Deployment of Unidata's Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system began officially on November 1, 1994, with the release of the Local Data Manager (LDM) version 4.1.What is the IDD?The Internet Data Distribution system is designed to replace the current satellite-broadcast distribution system for real-time weather data. The IDD uses Unidata's LDM software to move data over the Internet in near-real time. As data arrive, they are distributed to relay sites which, in turn, relay them to end-users or other relays until all recipients have been served. Data available via IDD includes Family of Services (FOS), DIFAX, NIDs, and the Unidata/Wisconsin data service.The Initial PhaseThe deployment and implementation of the full IDD is seen as a project that will be completed next summer. Over the shorter term, however, we have the foundation and building blocks in place for an accelerated deployment that will allow over 70 sites to become part of the IDD before the Alden C-band broadcast terminates on December 1, 1994. This means that all sites who applied for rapid deployment will be brought into the IDD in that time frame.As deployment begins, sources of data for the IDD include:
As time goes on, and as users identify other data streams they would like to receive, we expect the number of sources will increase. Not all sites will receive all data, however, so the IDD will look different to individual sites. Monitoring the DeploymentWe are publishing daily progress reports on the deployment in the IDD area of our Web server. The IDD homepage is the starting point for information on the system's topology (who is relaying data to whom), hourly and daily reliability summaries, and information on what is required of sites that intend to participate. Check this area of the server if you have any questions about the progress of deployment.Special ThanksUnidata would like to thank the brave sites that agreed to be guinea pigs for the IDD. Since last summer, these sites have tested many versions of the LDM, reconfiguring their platforms, finding bugs, and making suggestions for improvement. We are deeply indebted for their contributions. Without their involvement, implementation of the IDD would have been impossible. So, a standing ovation to the following sites:
Check Out Unidata's Big Web Featsby Sally Bates, Newsletter Editor and Information Manager at the Unidata Program Center We cannot let an issue of this newsletter go by without some mention of the World Wide Web (aka "WWW" or just "the Web"). As we have discussed in earlier issues, the Web is Unidata's newest medium for providing support. Our Web server currently provides a variety of support services, such as
Use of Unidata's Web server is growing steadily, from about 1500 accesses per week at the beginning of the summer to over 4000 per week by the beginning of November. Many of these are from people accessing information on the IDD project and the netCDF software. (We monitor the use of our server, and a summary of what is accessed most each week can be found on the server under "Unidata Web Server Statistics.") How does this affect you? Let's look at each of the services provided on the Unidata Web server. Using the Email ArchivesSuppose you are having difficulty using a GEMPAK program such as OAGRID. A search of the GEMPAK email database using OAGRID as the keyword results in a fairly long list of all the email messages that mention this program. Suppose, however, that you simply want to know the difference between the OAGRID program (which creates an empty gridded data file for use by the objective analysis programs) and GDCFIL (which also creates a gridded data file, but for more general use). A Boolean search on the keywords GDCFIL and OAGRID returns a much shorter list of files, several of which discuss the differences between these two programs.When you have a question concerning one of our packages, we recommend that, you search the archive of messages for that package before sending your question to support@unidata.ucar.edu. Finding the answer to your question by searching the email archives is faster than sending a query to Unidata support--and the archives are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week! But using the archives effectively does take some practice. You need to tailor your search as specifically as possible to avoid receiving too long a list in return. Access to Information about Unidata-Supported PackagesMany of the materials we make available at conferences and in our information packet are now available on line. Having a meeting with your dean to discuss matching funds for equipment grants? Print out copies of the Unidata overview or overviews of the packages you use and take them to the meeting. The pages for each software package have a variety of information in them, and most include examples of displays created by the software. (And if there is any additional information you would like to have available, please let us know.)Access to Online DocumentationDocumentation created by Unidata will soon be available only on line. Having only on-line documentation will allow us to update the manuals in a more timely fashion. Today, the netCDF User's Guide and the LDM Site Manager's Guide are on the server, as are tutorials on GEMPAK and WXP, and the training materials from the most recent LDM workshop.IDD Implementation InformationWe are keeping as much information available as possible on the progress of IDD implementation. This includes
As noted in the article on IDD implementation elsewhere in this issue, eventually all Unidata sites will need to implement IDD on their campuses in order to receive Unidata-supported data streams. At the end of calendar year 1995, the satellite broadcast of the Unidata/Wisconsin channel will cease and the Internet will be Unidata's sole mechanism for delivery of that data. Links to Other ServersSupporting Unidata products and services is the primary function of our server. However, we also want to build up a catalog of specialized Web information. Toward this end, we've begun collecting addresses of servers we believe might be of interest to some of you. We plan to begin a clearer subject index of these in the near future.To make this catalog as useful as possible, however, we need to know what information you would like indexed, and we will need your help in expanding the list. If you find an information server that you believe others in the Unidata community would find useful or if someone has created a server at your site, please send a note with the server's address to: url-report@unidata.ucar.edu We will continue to modify our Web server as we find new and interesting uses for it. We hope that you will help us in this by making suggestions and sending us information on new or interesting places you have found. A Glowing Paper SunsetAs mentioned earlier in this article, we are working toward the day when all Unidata information and documentation (perhaps even this Newsletter) will be provided only on-line. Even now there is useful, but volatile, information that is only available on our Web server. In effect, we are announcing an indefinite sunset date for the paper documents.This means that you need to obtain and install a Web browser as soon as it is practical for you to do so. At this time, there are good, stable, freely available browsers for all our supported platforms with the exceptionof those running OS/2. The only browser currently available for those running OS/2 requires specific communication and networking software that most of you probably don't have installed. We anticipate the solution to this problem will take one of the following forms: a) you will upgrade to a version of OS/2 that includes the needed software; b) other browsers will be written that don't rely on specific software, or that include their own versions of the software they need; or c) the authors of the current browser will modify it so that the additional software is not needed. For now, we will continue to supply printed versions of some of our documentation, but in the future we will phase out more and more of our paper publications. Rest assured that we understand the value of printed documents and that we will make every effort to make even our on-line products available in a printable format for some time to come. Experiences with the NIDS Internet DistributionSince June of this year, the University of Washington has been involved in an exciting revolution in learning about local weather, brought on by the NEXRAD (WSR- 88D) data we've been receiving over the Internet. Under Unidata's contract with WSI, Unidata universities can now receive NIDS products (a subset of the WSR-88D output) over the Internet for one or several radars. In our case, we decided to acquire radar data from the nearest radar--located on Camano Island, approximately 50 km north of Seattle.The following data products are available in NIDS format: base reflectivity at four elevation angles, composite reflectivity, layer composite reflectivity for three layers, precipitation (1 hour, 3 hour, and storm total), cloud tops, velocity azimuth display, base radial velocity at four elevation angles, and vertically integrated liquid. Some products are sent as raster images, and others are sent in radial format. The first problem we faced was that there were no software applications for decoding and displaying the NIDS data stream. To address this, Harry Edmon developed software that decodes the data, converts them from radial to Cartesian coordinates if necessary, and places them into GIF files. This graphics format, originally developed by Compuserve, is compact and easily displayed on a variety of hardware platforms. The original files are being archived at the University of Washington. Additional display software, developed by Mark Albright, allows the user to easily select the type, time, and elevation angle of the required image and then to display it. Additional software allows the animation of reflectivity or Doppler wind images. In general, the datastream has been reliable, except for several outages during September and October. New images come in approximately every six minutes. The meteorology of the Puget Sound region is complex, owing to the complicated orography of the area. With the radar imagery we have been able to view precipitation bands associated with the Puget Sound convergence zone (forced by convergence in the lee of the Olympic Mountains), the rainshadow in the lee of the Olympic Mountains, orographic precipitation enhancement, and even the aerosol plume produced by wild fires on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. Being able to regularly view the NEXRAD imagery for the first time is not unlike removing a blindfold. We expect the WSR-88D imagery to be an integral part of the instructional and research programs at the University of Washington. Editor's Note: The following information should help you realize the same benefits from NIDS data as Cliff and Harry have detailed in the preceding article. Displaying NEXRAD Radar DataRadar products from the NEXRAD Information Dissemination Service (NIDS) are now being made available to Unidata sites through a subscription service with WSI Corporation. These data involve two types of data feeds: NIDS and NOWRad.Displaying NIDS DATA The standard NIDS data feed provides the following products:
These products are in NIDS format and the format is in the public domain. While Unidata does not yet support any software packages for displaying these data, people in the community have written several decoders and some display programs for them. As noted in the article above, Harry Edmon (University of Washington) has developed decoders for the data and software that allow them to be stored in either netCDF or GIF formats. He is willing to share this software with others. In addition, Dan Vietor, the developer of WXP, has been working with WSI to develop NIDS access and display facilities for WXP. The next version of WXP (5.0a) will decode the NIDS products directly and display the information. This will include radial and rastor products as well as the wind profile data. It will be possible to remap products and display them over satellite imagery of surface data. A beta version of rad, the WXP display program, is now available to Unidata sites. Finally, Jim Cowie at COMET, working with Harry's decoders, is writing translaters to create Mc-IDAS AREA files. He will then continue software development to allow the GEMPAK software to display these data, and he expects to release the software to the community early next year. At the same time, Unidata's Tom Yoksas will be working with McIDAS code to allow McIDAS to display these data as well. Displaying NOWRad NOWRad is a national radar mosaic developed internally by WSI. It includes two products:
Dan Vietor has been working with WSI to develop WXP code to display these data. The new version of WXP will read in, decode, and display NOWRad products. These products can be remapped and overlaid on satellite images, surface data, etc. A NOWRad-to-McIDAS-AREA decoder is also being developed so that McIDAS and GEMPAK will be able to use these two products. The format of these products is proprietary, however, and cannot be released to the general user community. WXP version 5.0a will have a switch that will enable adding the NOWRad module to sites having the appropriate licenses from WSI. Sample WXP products are available via anonymous FTP on thunder.atms.purdue.edu in the directory /wxp/gif. McIDAS: New Items on the Menu and Something GUI for Dessertby Tom Yoksas, User Support Programmer at the Unidata Program Center This fall, Unidata released new versions of McIDAS-OS2 (version 5.9) and McIDAS-X (version 1.9), with changes that you'll notice as soon as you install the software. Both packages have new function-key menus and both can be easily configured to display products from the various data streams. This work was undertaken to increase the usability of the software and to begin to position the software to take advantage of the Internet Data Distribution system. For this release, we took pains to ensure that the menuing software for the two platforms remained nearly identical; in future releases, they will be allowed to diverge due to the inherent limitations of the function-key menu system on the OS/2 platform. The New MenusThe power of McIDAS has always resided in the range of commands that can be invoked in numerous ways to create displays tailored to the needs of the user. Using McIDAS commands directly, however, requires the user to become conversant with the details of the structure of each command and the procedures needed to combine commands to produce the desired output.In this release, we have tried to bring the power of the command-line into the menu system, hiding the syntax and command-line structure and making it easy to create displays through menu choices. For example, you can now overlay a series of analyses simply by turning on an overlay toggle and then directing the selected analyses to appear in the same frame. The commands run by the menu system are "smart" enough to select different colors for different analyses and to avoid having labels overwrite each other. We have also reorganized the menu to group analyses by data types: forecast analyses are in one set of menus, image files in another, surface analyses in another, and so on. We have made numerous systems administration parameters and the string table values that configure the menu system accessible through the menu itself. These new menus should make using McIDAS much, much easier for novices and experts alike. Access to More DataWith the IDD, McIDAS-X platforms will have access to the same data as will be available to all other Unidata systems, and some of them will be accessible on OS/2 platforms as well. Already, for example, you can create displays and overlays of lightning data and NMC frontal analyses. In the near future, IDD users will have access to the full range of international and HRS data as well.We have observed that novice and casual users of McIDAS have tended to develop a view of the package by the set of analyses that were offered out of the menu system distributed by Unidata. The recently released versions of Unidata McIDAS mark the first time that Unidata has undertaken the development of a fully functional interface for McIDAS that incorporates access to all of the data currently available in the Unidata/Wisconsin channel and selected products that are available by the IDD and FTP. For instance, the user now has menu access to all of the WetNet browse imagery; vertical cross-sections through observational and gridded data; MRF global-initialization gridded data; multiple-station meteorogram cross-sections; multiple-station 8-hour space-time graphs; National Lightning Detection Network lightning data; and textual listings of data by station and state. The new data menu also includes access to global infrared images in the Mollweide projection which are available from SSEC by FTP. The new release of McIDAS-OS2 includes procedures to automatically acquire these images with FTP processes initiated by the McIDAS scheduler. McIDAS-X users are most likely to get the imagery by processes initiated out of the UNIX cron facility. As delivered, the software has the scheduler entry suspended by default. To receive the data, you need only to unsuspend the scheduler entry provided by Unidata. Increased Number of FramesWhile reworking the menus, we also made it possible for you to configure your OS/2 platform to run 255 frames. (Whether you can actually run this many frames will depend on your workstation's available memory and disk space.) This substantial increase in the possible number of frames means that you can now create long animation loops. For example, you can now create several multi-day loops of imagery--enough to see longer-range patterns emerge. Also included in the releases are procedures that allow for automated remapping of satellite imagery, designed to remove the noticeable wobble from GOES-7 infrared and visible products.More DocumentationAs part of this release, we have provided online documentation in the BATCH files (those with the .BAT extension). The documentation should allow you to create new BATCH files that do similar things with minimum effort.On the HorizonAs of January 1, 1995 (yes, that is this coming January), Unidata will no longer support OS/2 version 1.3. Unidata McIDAS-OS2 Version 5.90 is the last version of McIDAS-OS2 that will operate under OS/2 Version 1.3. Future releases will be compiled as 32-bit applications that will only run under OS/2 2.0 or higher. Unidata recommends that users upgrade to current releases of OS/2 as soon as their budgets permit.The next release of Unidata Mc-IDAS-OS2 will not only be faster, but will offer the users with workstations that have Super VGA capability to run McIDAS-OS2 within OS/2's Presentation Manager. This configuration option (the VGA display you are accustomed to will still be available) will allow the user to view satellite imagery with higher numbers of gray levels (64 instead of the 12 used by the current McIDAS VGA display) and more overlay colors (eight instead of the current three). The other exciting capability that is offered by the new McIDAS-OS2 release is the availability of briefing frames. Briefing frames are separate viewports for existing frames that can be controlled independently from the original frames. Briefing frames give you the capability, for instance, of viewing two satellite loops on-screen simultaneously. Scheduled for the next releases of Unidata McIDAS-X and Mc-IDAS-OS2 is support for GOES-8 satellite imagery and NIDS and NOWRad products (available from WSI Corporation via the IDD) represented in AREA files. Scheduled for release after the first of the year is a full GUI for McIDAS-X based on the freely available Tcl/Tk package developed by John Ousterhout of the University of California-Berkeley. Enjoy the new releases! GEMPAK 5.2: Jam-packed with New Featuresby Peggy Bruehl, User Support Programmer at the Unidata Program Center Unidata recently made a new release of GEMPAK: GEMPAK version 5.2. This release adds many new capabilities to the software. Here are some of the highlights. Satellite Displays and AnimationAt last, version 5.2 brings you the ability to display satellite imagery in GEMPAK. You can display imagery, overlay it with properly navigated graphics generated from any GEMPAK program, and animate over a time series.Diagnostics and Plotting for Gridded DataGEMPAK version 5.2 includes several new diagnostic functions for gridded data. Among them are
Plotting, Listing, and Decoding Observational DataGEMPAK 5.2 includes new updated station tables for surface, sounding (upper air), and synoptic stations. In addition, a script is provided which will allow you to convert station tables in WXP format into GEMPAK format. Updated station tables in WXP format are routinely provided via anonymous FTP by Dan Vietor of Purdue University.Decoding of three- and six-hour encoded data, ASOS reports, and some new parameters (pressure tendency, wetbulb temperature, etc.) are now supported in the standard surface decoders. You can now use SFEDIT to ingest surface data where the location of the observing station changes in time (ship data, drifting buoys, aircraft, mobile observing stations, etc.). Also, the format for plotting of station information and stability indices in SNPROF has been improved. New Device DriversThe new GEMPAK XW (X Window) driver allows much more flexibility than previous versions. You can now open mutliple GEMPAK X Windows from a single GEMPAK program (up to 5 at one time). You can load multiple pixmaps into these X Windows and loop the frames via text commands. Also, the GEMPAK X Window will now take mouse input for defining graphics areas and cross-section lines. All this, plus the display, overlay, and animation of satellite images makes the XW driver one of the most important new features of GEMPAK 5.2.GEMPAK 5.2 also contains a new device driver called NC (producing graphics in a pseudo-CGM format) for generating GEMPAK meta files viewable by NTRANS. NTRANS, which will be released by Unidata soon, is a GUI-based animator and viewer for GEMPAK graphics. NTRANS will allow you animate displays, do color editing on the fly, create multipanel displays, and direct output to a printer. The Unidata release of NTRANS will include a suite of sample scripts for generating a set of standard graphics with FOS data. Sites will be encouraged to configure and extend these scripts to suit the requirements of their departments, and then share these new scripts with the rest of the Unidata GEMPAK community. For More InformationThese are only a few of new features of GEMPAK 5.2. There is a complete list of the new functionality of GEMPAK 5.2, as well as an FAQ explaining how to use many of these features available in the Unidata GEMPAK distribution, from the GEMPAK FTP server, and via the Internet on the GEMPAK home page at the Unidata WWW server. Check them out!More and Better WEATHERA contributed software program called WEATHER, developed by Peter Neilley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has undergone several new additions and enhancements. This product was originally made available over a year ago to help Unidata sites display and use text-based information. Among the many original options within WEATHER were (and still are) such products as severe weather reports, FP3 reports from forecast offices, model output results, SAOs for states and cities, plus raw or decoded upper-air reports. In actuality, the site decides what to display and is essentially limited only by the products that the site chooses to save. (The products are saved by Unidata's Local Data Manager [LDM], which is required to run the WEATHER program.) With the present emphasis on graphically represented data, we find that many of our students and faculty still want to see the raw data or the thinking of various other forecast groups.New additions that enhance the earlier version of WEATHER are
At Millersville University, we have set up an alias for WEATHER that brings up an X Window that is large enough to accommodate the full, decoded upper-air suite or the full model output on one screen. And with the print option, we can also direct the output of either product to the printer (except that the upper-air decoded product is too large to dump the full screen to a printer). WEATHER is contributed UNIX software available via anonymous FTP from unidata.ucar.edu. It is located in the directory Editor's note: Please be aware that Peter Neilley's WEATHER is not the same as ldm/weather.c. Peter's program works with the new LDM 4.1 release, ldm/weather.c does not. Sites interested in trying WEATHER can do so by logging into Winter 1995 Training WorkshopThe Unidata Program Center has scheduled a users training workshop for the period of February 27 through March 17. The workshop will consist of consecutive sessions devoted to Unidata application packages, projects, and the Local Data Manager (LDM). We are announcing the winter workshops well in advance of the January 27th sign-up deadline to allow you to make your plans early.The session schedules are as follows:
NOTE: Enrollment in each session will be limited to 14 people. If fewer than six people register for a given workshop, we reserve the right to cancel that workshop session and will notify the registrants. The workshops will be held at the Unidata Program Center office, 3300 Mitchell Lane, Suite 170, Boulder, Colorado 80307. Applications must be received no later than January 27, 1994, and will be considered on a first-come, first-served basis. Attendance at the workshops is free; however, attendees are responsible for their own travel, lodging, and meals. Information on lodging and, if necessary, on the software licensing agreement will be sent to all attendees upon receipt and acceptance of their application. You can find an online application here. Results of the 1993 Users SurveyLast fall, the Unidata Users Committee surveyed the community on a variety of topics. Sixty-five surveys were returned out of 137 sent out, which is a respectable return rate of about 47%. If you are interested in responses to particular questions, they have all been compiled and published on the Unidata Web server. What follows is a summary of the information of interest to the Unidata Users Committee. The most-used data services in decreasing order are the Unidata/Wisconsin, DIFAX, DDS, and HRS services. Data types that users most want in the future include WSR-88D data, climate data types, and COMET case studies. Many types of data are transmitted via FTP on the Internet as well as on CDs. NCAR CD-ROM gridded data appear to be under-utilized--only four respondents used them. There appears to be a need to advertise these CD-ROMs. Most respondents want higher resolution satellite imagery--both VIS and IR--for mesoscale analysis. Some of these data will become available with the advent of GOES-8. However, we must realize that finer resolution satellite images will require more disk space. The most widely used platforms for McIDAS-OS/2 are, in order, IBM PS/2, Gateway 2000, and other PC clones. For UNIX systems running the Unidata suite of software, the most-used systems in order are Sun, DEC, HP, IBM RISC, and SGI. McIDAS and WXP are used a great deal for synoptic and mesoscale instruction and in general map discussions. GEMPAK is used to a slightly lesser extent. In most universities, one to three faculty appear to be the heavy, hands-on Unidata users. Displaying Unidata products on screen in a large classroom setting continues to be a problem for most users. The Users Committee has asked Unidata to poll users for their solutions to this problem. When our poll is completed we will compile the responses and make the results available on the Unidata Web server. DIFAX continues to be very important for both synoptic labs and research and provides charts that are not easily replaceable with other software systems. Many faculty are seeking funding for new equipment through NSF (including ILI), Unidata, or university funds. Almost all universities are connected to the Internet, but baud rates in the departments' buildings vary. Most respondents indicated that they will need some type of support to phase in the Internet Data Delivery (IDD) system. A separate problem is the on-going maintenance of Unidata systems. Most universities have their Unidata systems operated/maintained by a staff or faculty member in their "spare" time. This leaves the systems undersupported in general. In many cases a graduate or undergraduate student is of considerable assistance. Highest priority for Unidata development includes: using netCDF for all software and creating improved tutorials and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for all packages. Many also wish to see common parameters and syntax for all the software packages. Also, most universities want to have access to retrospective data sets, as are now available at SSEC in Wisconsin. More survey details are available here. Unidata Welcomes Don MurrayIn early September, Unidata welcomed the latest addition to its technical staff: Don Murray--previously of Lyndon State College in Vermont. Don will be providing user support for McIDAS, GEMPAK, and WXP. He will also create new online documentation for the McIDAS package.Don received bachelors degrees in meteorology and math from Lyndon in 1981. He then migrated to California to work for Oceanroutes as a data-systems manager, learning a lot about meteorological and oceanographic data and data systems in the process. His next move took him to Bozeman, Montana, and Montana State University, where he received a masters degree in earth science. Apparently Bozeman was the last stop on a round-trip itinerary, for he then returned to Lyndon State to work as their meteorology lab coordinator and Unidata site manager. We welcome Don, his wife Diana, and their son Geoffrey to their latest destination and we hope they decide to stay for a while. Extraction Program for Marine Weather Observations AvailableMETOBS is a program for MS-DOS PCs that extracts marine (ship and moored buoy) observations from raw observation files based on user specifications. I have placed it in the public domain with only a few minor restrictions.Modes of operation include:
The output files can contain either date/time/position (for ship tracking) or the complete coded observation. The program is written and compiled in QuickBASIC and the uncommented source code is provided. Since I'm a climatologist and not a programmer, you shouldn't expect wonderful, elegant code. But, it does work (at least with the DDS/PPS feed). Limited documentation and examples are included. The distribution file ( METOBS is available via FTP, Gopher, and WWW. FTP: WWW/Gopher: Questions and comments on this application should be addressed to: Larry Riddle by Dave Fulker, Unidata Program Director We recently finalized changes in our Alden contract to add DIFAX to the other Family of Services (FOS) data distributed via Internet Data Distribution (IDD). With these changes, Alden will make available to Unidata universities a data stream containing all NWS DIFAX information in standard "Group 3" facsimile format, using the same IDD methods employed for all other FOS data. This DIFAX data stream will be available via IDD prior to the December 1, 1994 date for termination of Alden's C-band satellite service. Although the IDD methods for delivering DIFAX will be identical to those for other components of the FOS, the usage arrangements for universities will differ as follows: The DIFAX-via-IDD service is available only to Unidata universities that hold DIFAX subscriptions with Alden. Subscriptions will require the payment of fees (presently $98 per month, unchanged from Alden's Unidata fee for DIFAX reception via satellite) and will incorporate usage guidelines. The guidelines will represent individual agreements between each university and Alden, and Unidata will neither interpret nor attempt to influence them. Typically, the agreements will restrict the use and redistribution of DIFAX products less than 48 hours old to the Unidata university campus and then only for educational, non-commercial purposes; they will impose no restriction on using or redistributing DIFAX products older than 48 hours.
The Unidata Program Center (UPC) will define IDD routing tables for DIFAX distribution in keeping with the above agreements between Alden and Unidata universities. That is, DIFAX data will not be delivered except where valid agreements are in place. In contrast, neither fee nor agreement with Alden is required for a Unidata university to acquire other kinds of FOS data via IDD.
The new contract ensures that DIFAX data can be delivered via Internet to any subscribing university with a properly configured LDM. (This is not the only means for acquiring DIFAX on the Internet--some users are arranging with other firms to acquire DIFAX by methods such as FTP.
The LDM can store each DIFAX product in a user-designated file, or the data can be directed to a process, say to drive a printer. Unfortunately, Unidata offers no software for such printing at present; it is likely that freely available packages (such as netpbm) can, with modest effort, be used to solve the problem, but this thesis must be tested. My hope is that a few Unidata community members will undertake this work and disseminate the solution(s) to others. To foster this, we will create a special-interest mailing list (difax@unidata.ucar.edu) for discussing solutions. If you are willing to help identify and test software for printing data in Group 3 FAX format, please let us know at once and we will add your name to the mailing list. |
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Please send comments to info@unidata.ucar.edu |
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