GIS

GIS Activity Report: October 2003

Prepared by Jeff Weber and Yuan Ho
October 2003

The UPC has been in the process of re-formatting GRIB gridded products into Geo-Tiffs.

We have success at generating Geo-Tiffs from all model output from NCEP.

Current projections tested and proven succesful:

  • Polar Sterographic
  • Lambert
  • Lat/Lon
  • (dX,dY)

    We feel that we can now accomodate any projection, and now need model output in other projections to test.

    These Geo-Tiffs are viewable in ESRI's ArcMap, and can also be viewed in the IDV, others have tested the Geo-Tiffs with "freely available" software with success.

    We continue to be ISO compliant and do not render any products that could only be viewed with propriatary software.

    The process currently being used involves:
  • Creating a NetCDF file from the GRIB model output via gribtonc (program for conversion to Net CDF)
  • Once in NetCDF a JAVA routine creates the Geo-Tiff file.

    Plans are to move towards other data sources than gridded output.

    The UPC has experimented with a WMS (Web Map Server) and had success with displaying data from the IDD in near real-time. This experiment was using the watches and warnings text products from the LDM/IDD and creating a real time display of these watches and warnings over a map of the United States.

    We maintain an active presence on the UCAR GIS advisory panel.

    Examples

    AVN Global(full size)
    RUC2 (full size)