Unidata McIDAS-X v2007
August 16, 2007
Unidata McIDAS-X Version 2007 is now available for download.
Unidata McIDAS-X v2007 is a combination of SSEC McIDAS-X v2007 and
XCD v2007 including additional bugfixes developed by the UPC, and
various applications and enhancements from the UPC, the Australian
Bureau of Meteorology, CSU/CIRA, and others.
New/Changed/Upcoming in McIDAS-X:
- A beta version of the command ADT was added to McIDAS-X.
ADT Estimates tropical cyclone intensity by using the
Advanced Dvorak Technique (ADT) algorithm with infrared satellite
imagery.
- A new keyword, ENSEMBLE= was added to the GRDCOPY,
GRDDISP, GRDIMG, GRDINFO, and GRDLIST
commands to select ensemble grids by specifying their ensemble
numbers.
- Added the ability to specify positive MAG= keyword values
when copying data from a GOES archive server.
- IMGREMAP was updated to work correctly if the destination
image has LALO navigation.
- WWDISP and WWLIST were modified to accommodate Areal
Flood Warnings send in NOAAPORT FLS (Flood Statement) products.
- Unidata McIDAS now supports the direct access/use of the
PNG-compressed imagery available in the IDD UNIWISC (PNG-compressed
AREA format) and FNEXRAD (PNG-compressed GINI and AREA formats)
datasetreams. Users no longer need to run LDM-McIDAS decoders
(pnga2area for PNG-compressed AREA images; pngg2gini for
PNG-compressed GINI images) to uncompress the images before
use in McIDAS. Sites that use these images in applications that
do not support the PNG-compressed formats still need to uncompress
the images.
- LDM-McIDAS decoders for NOAA wind profiler (proftomd), NLDN
lightning (nldn2md), and PNG-compressed imagery in AREA and GINI
(pnga2area and pngg2gini, respectively) formats will be
incorporated into a v2007 enhancement addendum early this fall.
- Support of GNU gfortran was added for 32- and 64-bit Linux
workstations. NOTE: gfortran use has only been tested
on Linux workstations.
- The GRIB ADDE server was updated to allow creation of datasets
containing GRIB2 files from NOAAPORT and to display/manipulate the
data using the GRD* commands.
- The Unidata McIDAS-X/-XCD configuration script, mcxconfig, was
significantly enhanced. mcxconfig now creates ADDE server
mapping table actions (LSSERVE.BAT), client routing table
actions (LOCDATA.BAT), needed file REDIRECTions (LOCAL.NAM),
LDM server configuration file additions (ldmd.conf_mcidas),
LDM pattern-action files (pqact.conf_mcidas[AB]), and user
'ldm' crontab entries (crontab.ldm_mcidas) that can be used
to setup McIDAS for a variety of classes of use especially
for sites that use the LDM to ingest data.
McIDAS-X v2007 Notes
- A major change for the Unidata v2007 MCGUI is the
reformulation of the image display definition file
ADDEIMAGE.CORE. In an effort to make
ADDEIMAGE.CORE (and ADDEIMAGE.SITE and
ADDEIMAGE.USER) entries easier to create/modify, the
format of the file has been completely changed. v2005 versions
of ADDEIMAGE.(CORE|SITE|USER) are incompatible with
MCGUI v2007. If you created any of these files, you need
to move them out of your MCPATH directories before
attempting to run MCGUI v2007.
- Even though the McIDAS-X image window displays 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 support the use of
the KDE environment.
- The GVAR calibration module kbxgvar.dlm was updated to use
the correct gain and bias values for sounder band 19.
- Updated the MODIS Level 1b servers to work better (faster transfers)
with internally compressed Scientific Datasets from the Goddard
DAAC.
- Updated the Meteosat Second Generation calibration module,
kbxmsg.dlm, to have its coefficients match those from
EUMETSAT.
- Added MTSAT HRIT servers to allow creation of datgasets of segmented
MTSAT data in HRIT format on local and remote servers and
display/manipulate the data using the IMG* commands.
- Updated POES Level 1b servers to work with NOAA-18 data; to
no longer shift IMGCOPYed data 1x1 line/element; and to
correctly include bands 3a and 3 (bands 6 and 3, respectively,
in McIDAS) when both are present in an image.
McIDAS-XCD v2007 Notes
- SSEC recommends that McIDAS-XCD be run on 32-bit versions
of Linux. Experience at the UPC has shown that there may be a
problem running -XCD on 64-bit versions of Linux (we run Fedora
Core 5). The problems we are seeing are POINT decoders stop writing
output data files after a certain period of time, typically a few
days. This issue is under investigation, and a bugfix addendum
will be issued as soon as the cause for the problem is found.
- 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 changed to match those
recommended by SSEC. 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 v2007 Materials
Please send all questions/comments to
Unidata McIDAS Support
<support-mcidas@unidata.ucar.edu>.
Tom Yoksas
Unidata User Support
