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Re: cracking netCDF files on a Mac

> To: address@hidden
> From: Warren Wiscombe <address@hidden>
> Subject: Re: cracking netCDF files on a Mac

Hi Warren,

>    We occasionally get ARM files in netCDF, but not enough that we have
> become expert in the format.  Each time we have to start nearly from
> scratch.  And we use Macs almost exclusively for data analysis.  Is there a
> Mac program that unpacks netCDF files into their components?  Esp. the data
> vectors and data descriptors like labels and units?  Presumably such a
> program would plot, etc., also, but we mainly need a kind of "can opener"
> that allows us to peek inside the files in a sophisticated way (we have an
> old version of 'ncdump' but that is kind of primitive compared to what we
> would ideally like to have).
> 
>    We have heard that IDL does this.  But that is like buying a
> sledgehammer to crack a nut.  Something simpler would be much preferred.

The only commercial tool I know of for this is T3D (formerly Slicer)
from Fortner Research:

    http://www.fortner.com/docs/product_T3D.html

If you have MATLAB for the Mac, you can also use Chuck Denham's MexCDF,
a MATLAB/NetCDF Interface for which Mac binaries are available at

    http://crusty.er.usgs.gov/mexcdf.html

There is some limited Mac support for FERRET:

    http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/ferret/home.html

GrADS is also implemented on Macs, and the latest version is supposed to
have some support for reading netCDF files with some restrictions, but I
don't know any more details:

    http://grads.iges.org/grads/

We're currently working on a Java browser for netCDF files that runs on
the Mac as well as any other Java platform.  I've used it to look at
netCDF files on the Mac, but it's not ready for release yet.  Maybe in a
month or two ...

--Russ