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[netCDF #HXJ-757713]: (No Subject)

Hello,

You would not use netCDF-C++, or the C or Fortran library to display any sort 
of plots; netCDF is a data storage library, not a data visualization library.  
Similarly, there are many places you can get air sounding data (and other 
observational Earth Sciences data) from; Google will be your best bet to find 
the appropriate sources.  Organizations such as NOAA, NASA, the USGS, and 
others have public-facing data sets which might be of use to you.

If I may, I'd like to ask you a question.  Given the number of questions you've 
sent in to Unidata support, we're a bit curious about what it is you're trying 
to do, and if there might be a better way for us to offer you guidance.  The 
tasks you're asking about are not trivial, but they are not impossible, either. 
 However, they require a fundamental grounding in software development 
approaches, and a robust understanding of the various 'parts' of software.  For 
example, to answer your question below in a high-level way, I'd say:

"You'd need to identify your data source, and you'd need to identify the file 
format they are working in.  Once you have that information sorted out, you can 
extract the data into arrays of the appropriate type and plot using a 
geospatial plotting library (or other plotting library appropriate to the task 
at hand).  Your choice of language matters as well, a lot of this can be done 
fairly easily in Python, but C/C++ are also choices.  Plotting is harder in C++ 
unless you're really making use of some specialized libraries.  No, I don't 
know any of the specialized libraries, you might look at the offerings from 
Kitware, maybe there's something there, or maybe you should think about doing 
this in Python?"

In short, you appear to be tackling advanced software problems, but (and I mean 
no disrespect) you seem to lack the grounding in the basics required for 
projects of these scope.  Which is fine! There is nothing wrong with ambition, 
or being self taught, or struggling to figure out how to do something cool in 
software.  That's how many of us here at Unidata got our start, after all.  

Which brings me back to my point above, about offering guidance.  If you were a 
University student at a particular US institution, we might be able to direct 
you to local faculty who can help steer you towards the resources that would 
help you get off to a better start.  Similarly, if you have a particular area 
of interest you're working in, maybe we can provide some resources for 
establishing good fundamentals. 

In any event, while it is in our nature to want to help, the questions you're 
asking are very broad, and aren't necessarily anything we're going to be able 
to help you with, unless we can get a better handle on the goal, skill set and 
resources we're working with.  

I hope this helps, have a great day,

-Ward

Ward Fisher
address@hidden
UCAR/Unidata - Software Engineer
NetCDF Team Lead



> how can i display upper air soundings plots using netcdf-C++  and where
> would i get soundings data from?
> 
> 


Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: HXJ-757713
Department: Support netCDF
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed
===================
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