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20040315: Using files in Binary format

>From: Eric Ware <address@hidden>
>Organization: Cornell
>Keywords: 200403151917.i2FJHtrV028561  IDV rada

Hi Eric-

>I'm a grad student at Cornell Univ. and am beginning a project on radar rainfa
> ll rates.  I downloaded binary radar data from NCDC and was told that this da
> ta could be viewed using IDV.  I decompressed these files and tried to view t
> hem from the "files/URL" panel, but there was an error when trying to load th
> em.  Can I view these binary files, and if so how?

Are these Level III files or Level II files?  If Level III, we do not
read them directly from disk, but can read them through an ADDE server.
I'm going to assume that you are using Level II, so instructions follow.

1) If the files are all from the same station, decompress them into
one directory.  If they are from different stations, then decompress
them into different directories.  For simplicity, if you use the
4 letter id of the station (i.e. KFTG for the Denver radar), the IDV
will guess at the station name.  Level II files do not contain the
station location information in them.

2)  In the Data Source Selector, choose the Radar Data tab and then
the Level II tab.  Use the file selector to move to the directory 
where you decompressed the data.  If you used the suggested naming
convention above for the directory, you should see the correct
location listed in the chooser box on the right.  If not, select
the appropriate station.  Choose the files you want to look at
and click the OK button.  You can select multiple files using the
Ctrl key with a mouse click on each file.

3) Once you have loaded the files into the Data Selector, you can
select the DataSource and then choose the way you want to display
the fields.

What version of IDV are you using?  I would suggest using the
latest version (1.1b3) if possible since that has the best support
for Level II data.

Don Murray
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