Unidata McIDAS-X v2008

August 10, 2008

Unidata McIDAS-X Version 2008 is now available for download.

Unidata McIDAS-X v2008 is a combination of SSEC McIDAS-X v2008 and XCD v2008 including additional bugfixes developed by the UPC, and various applications and enhancements from the UPC, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, CSU/CIRA, and others.

McIDAS-X/-XCD News of Note

In 2009 and beyond, official McIDAS-X software updates will be made via software addenda (including online documentation updates) rather than via formal annual upgrades each summer. This step is being taken so that the McIDAS programming, testing and documentation efforts can focus on the next generation McIDAS, McIDAS-V.

McIDAS-X v2008 Notes

Many corrections to ADT and associated software so it works much better on more platforms than the beta version in McIDAS-X 2007; also now sets the value for the environment variable LDR_CNTRL based on the amount of memory available when running McIDAS-X on an AIX system.
Modified IMGCOPY BAND keyword to allow copying of selected bands (no just one band or ALL bands) if the source image is MTSAT raw data on an SDI server; copying of selected bands is also available with GVAR raw data on an SDI server, MODIS Level 1b data in HDF format, or real-time segmented MSG Level 1.5 files transmitted by EUMETSAT.
Support of GNU gfortran was improved for 32- and 64-bit Linux workstations. NOTE: gfortran use has only been tested at the UPC on Linux workstations.
GRIB ADDE serving was updated for datasets containing GRIB2 files from NOAAPORT and to display/manipulate the data using the GRD* commands.
MCLISTEN - new undocumented command that is used to send McIDAS-X information to McIDAS-V through use of the McIDAS-V bridge.
MOSRPT - fixed bugs in MOS decoders and in station database so MOSRPT now correctly finds and lists Alaskan MOS forecasts.
NAVCALC - updated to work correctly with MTSAT HRIT imagery.
BUFR Server - several new modules were added and existing ones were modified in preparation for an upcoming McIDAS-X BUFR server and McIDAS-XCD BUFR filer; the server and filer are *not* complete in version 2008; a separate, alpha version, McIDAS BUFR package that requires Java is planned for later in 2008.
GeoTIFF Servers - updated GeoTIFF servers so that GeoTIFF files created with IMGCOPY, IMGFILT, IMGOPER or IMGREMAP are compatible with the ArcGIS software package.
GOES-14/-15 - updated calibration module and server so applications will correctly handle increased resolution (from 8km to 4km) of band 6 GOES-O/14 and GOES-P/15 data.
GVAR Servers - updated GVAR servers to output correct radiance values when using IMGCOPY with UNIT=RAD to write to a netCDF dataset.
Level 1b Servers - updated Level 1b servers to work with MetOp-A AVHRR FRAC data; see the DSSERVE command's online help or its documentation in the Unidata v2008 McIDAS User's Guide for information about creating the datasets.
Meteosat-8/-9 - updated Meteosat Second Generation servers and calibration module to accommodate the 05 May 2008 change from spectral to effective radiance, and the inclusion of a flag in the signal to indicate the radiance type; the calibration block for MSG data was increased in size to 400 bytes; the calibration module (kbxmsg.dlm) is backward compatible to correctly read both old and new data.
Meteosat Servers - updated Meteosat PDUS servers to work with archive directory structures that have a different directory for each day; also added new Meteosat OMTP servers to work with Open MTP format data.
New MODIS Product - added MODIS product server in McIDAS-X to allow creation of Server datasets of MODIS Corrected Reflectance data in HDF format on local and remote servers, and display or manipulation of the data using the IMG* commands; see the DSSERVE command's online help or its documentation in the McIDAS User's Guide (revised 5/08) for information about creating the datasets.
MTSAT HRIT Server - changed latitude and longitude of MTSAT's subsatellite point from a hardcoded value to one that finds the value from the satellite signal.
Even though operation of McIDAS-X has improved in recent Linux KDE environments, it has been observed that there is a memory leak that will render the workstation unresponsive if McIDAS is left running for several days. For this reason, we do not recommend the use of the KDE environment.

McIDAS-XRD v2008 Notes

40 routines from the McIDAS-XRD (X Research and Development) package have been included in the v2008 distribution. These routines include a variety of display applications and ADDE servers for different kinds of data.

NOTE: The XRD routines are not built with -X or -XCD. Instead the user must explicitly build and install the routines in a separate step after McIDAS-X has been built:
```
       <as mcidas>
       cd ~mcidas/mcidas2008/src
       make xrd
       make install.xrd
       
```

McIDAS-XCD v2008 Notes

SSEC recommends that McIDAS-XCD be run on 32-bit versions of Linux. Code changes made after the SSEC v2008 release which have been incorporated into Unidata McIDAS v2008 seem to enable XCD to be run on 64-bit systems with no problems, but testing is ongoing.
Users are strongly advised to switch to the use of the GRIB server for faster data access and less disk space usage. The real-time GRIB server requires the installation of the MySQL server, user and development environments.
The list of ADDE GRID/BRIB datasets has been updated to match those recommended by SSEC for v2008. This change will force the end user to modify scripts that access GRID/GRIB datasets either from local or remote ADDE servers.

Useful McIDAS-X v2008 Materials

Release Notes contains complete information of -X/-XCD changes in v2008.
Refer to Installing McIDAS-X on Unix or MacOS X Workstations for detailed information on downloading, installing, and configuring the McIDAS-X/-XCD.
ABCs of Upgrading from a Previous Distribution provides an ABC for upgrading from v2007 to v2008.

Please send all questions/comments to Unidata McIDAS Support <support-mcidas@unidata.ucar.edu>.

Tom Yoksas
Unidata User Support