Jessica Blunt

by Jessica Blunt
2019 Unidata summer intern

The overarching theme of my projects this summer has been improving the accessibility of the Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) for the average scientist. The IDV is a versatile and powerful, though complicated, program.

When I ask people if they've heard of the IDV, there are two types of answers that stand out. The first, a simple “no” or “I think someone mentioned it once.” The second, something like “I've tried to figure it out, but didn't get very far.” I worked to reach those who gave the second answer.

Three new screencasts related to the IDV have been posted to the Unidata YouTube channel in the past month. Two are contributions from members of the IDV user community, and one was created by Unidata Program Center staff to explain several features of the newly released IDV version 5.0.

A weather display from the Mapes IDV Collection

Three new IDV tutorials created by Dr. Brian Mapes of the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (RSMAS) are available on Unidata's YouTube channel. The new tutorials introduce the Mapes IDV Collection, which is a curated compilation of IDV bundles and "templates" delivered in the form of an IDV plugin. Dr. Mapes is building the Collection to bring together and provide easy access to some interesting datasets and displays that he uses in his own research and teaching.

We encourage those interested in learning more about the IDV to watch and send comments and feedback to the Unidata IDV development team or to Dr. Mapes. We are open to suggestions for future screencast topics, and encourage you to send in topic requests.

3D parcel trajectories displayed in the IDV.

New IDV tutorials are available on Unidata's YouTube channel. The most recent tutorials address the topics of:

• navigating within the three-dimensional IDV display,
• saving and restoring work using the IDV bundle mechanism,
• and working with three-dimensional parcel trajectory displays.

IDV tutorial videos are now available.

Following suggestions from our Users and steering committees, Unidata has begun creating short video tutorials designed to introduce viewers to different aspects of our software. Our plan is to create new videos (and update existing videos) as time and resources allow.