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Re: Galeon full of gold

Lorenzo Bigagli wrote:


Dear John,
we're up to start with our Galeon tasks and I take the opportunity to say hello and share a few considerations with you on netCDF-CF conventions and Java. In particular, I've been looking for tools and implementations of the CF conventions in Java, but couldn't find anything (but a supposedly Python-powered compliance checker on a UK web site). 
I was so wondering if you were aware of any efforts in that direction.
I'm thinking of writing a Java parser for netCDF-CF files, to be used for marshalling the needed information in XML (i.e. ncML-GML). With that regard, could you please send me an example netCDF-CF file we will be using in the use-cases? 

Regards,
   LB


Hi Lorenzo:
Netcdf-Java 2.2 parses many of the CF conventions, mostly the ones concerning Coordinate Systems. This is done when you open the file through
NetcdfDataset.openDataset(String location, boolean enhance, ucar.nc2.util.CancelTask cancelTask) 

with enhance = true.
You can then examine the coordinate system objects that are part of NetcdfDataset. 

The ToolsUI program at
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/netcdf-java/v2.2/webstart/index.html 

will show you much of this info - esp see the CoordSys tab.

-----

Some sample CF files are at

 http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/examples/files.html

the two that i think we should use are:
1) http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/examples/tos_O1_2001-2002.nc
this is a simple time series of a lat/lon gridded sea surface temperature. It should be simple for most clients to handle 

 2) http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/examples/RUC.nc
this has some 3D fields on pressure surfaces, as well as other vertical coordinates. should be a good challenge for GIS to deal with.
Let me know what you think of using those two files, ill probably post this message to galeon to see if others have an opinion. 

Ciao!