Version 4.1 Updates

Test Version 4.1.5

Introduced 2012-02-01 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster; not ecgate)

  • Installed as metview4_new

  • Rebuilt with GRIB_API 1.10.0, odb_api 0.9.9, latest Mars client and Magics 2.14.10

Introduced 2012-02-20 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster; not ecgate)

  • Rebuilt Mars client with latest GRIB_API 1.10.0

User Version 4.1.3

Upgrade 2011-11-28 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster; not ecgate)

Version 4.1.3 became User Version at ECMWF

Test Version 4.1.3

Update 2011-11-24

Rebuilt with Magics 2.14.7

Export Version 4.1.3

External release 2011-11-21

Version 4.1.3-export became available

Test Version 4.1.3

Introduced 2011-11-23 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster; not ecgate)

  • Installed as metview4_new

  • Data histogram available in the Display Window’s ‘Data Layer’ tab

  • Cursor data in the Display Window shows both scaled and unscaled grid point values

  • The standard Mars client has been updated to the version which can handle ODB data. This makes the specialised Mars/ODB client redundant (it is still available for now though)

  • Fixed BUFR code to work with non-compressed multisubset BUFR messages

  • Enhanced BUFR code to work with NCEP “PrepBUFR” files

  • Fixes in ASCII table-reading code

  • Fix in setoutput() Macro function

Export Version 4.1.2

External release 2011-11-04

Version 4.1.2-export became available

User Version 4.1.2

Upgrade 2011-10-26 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster; not ecgate)

Version 4.1.2 became User Version at ECMWF

Test Version 4.1.2

Introduced 2011-10-19 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster; not ecgate)

Installed as metview4_new

Major update, including the following changes:

  • Plotting

    • Added basic page layout to Macro (multiple plots on a single page)

    • Exporting a plot now allows a user-selected range of pages

    • New set of Visualiser icons available from the ‘Modules (Plotting)’ icon drawer. These replace the ‘Manager’ icons which were in an earlier development release. The purpose of these icons is to enable the visualisation of certain data types which do not normally carry enough meta-information to plot them, or which can be plotted in various ways (e.g. in geographical or Cartesian space, as a matrix or as points). The supported data types are:

      • NetCDF - NetCDF files

      • ODB - ODB databases

      • Table - ASCII tables (e.g. CSV files)

      • Input - lists of coordinates and values

  • WMS

    When zooming in a plot with a WMS layer, a new WMS request is issued in order to ensure optimal image quality for the new area

  • Other

    • On-screen font size issue fixed

    • Uses latest Magics++ features including updated coastlines and new legend mode: histogram

  • Display Window

    • Plots can be resized using controls in the toolbar. Note that this is a purely graphical scaling; plots are not recomputed.

    • Redesigned cursor data which now works with GRIB fields, NetCDF fields and ODB data

    • Faster interactive graphics rendering, noticeable mainly in the magnifier

    • New “Layer Data” tab for layer meta-data

  • ODB

    • Complete change to ODB interface in Metview for improved usability - old ODB icons will not be visible. Please see the revised ODB tutorial for information on the new icons.

    • Macro: odb_filter() and retrieve_odb() return ‘nil’ if no data was found

    • See also the relevant entries in “Data Examiners”

    • MARS-ODB client available

  • Macro

    • Can now read ASCII table files: use the Table Reader icon to help define how the file is read. Available functions are:

      • read_table() - read a file into a ‘table’ variable

      • count() - return the number of columns

      • name() - returns the name of the indexed column

      • values() - returns a vector or a list of strings for the column

      • specified by index or name

    • Renamed various Macro functions for consistency when extracting or setting arrays of values in various data types. The original versions still work, but issue a warning. All these functions work with vectors for efficiency. The list of deprecated functions and the new versions is:

      • fieldset functions: gridvals->values, gridlats->latitudes, gridlons->longitudes,set_gridvals->set_values.

      • geopoint functions: date->dates, level->levels, latitude->latitudes,longitude->longitudes, value->values, value2->value2s, set_latitude->set_latitudes,set_longitude->set_longitudes, set_level->set_levels, set_date->set_dates,set_time->set_times, set_value->set_values, set_value2->set_value2s.

      • table functions: value->values.

      • odb functions: value->values.

    • New Macro function: number(string) - converts a string into a number; if a string cannot be converted into a number, then  zero is returned. Example: a = number(‘123.4’)

    • Temporary files are now cleaned more effectively for ODB, geopoints and BUFR data

    • New function waitmode(), mainly useful for debugging: determines whether Macro waits immediately for asynchronous (icon-function) function calls (1) or not (0 = default). Returns the mode’s previous value.

    • New Macro library function mvl_create_netcdf_2d()

  • Macro Editor

    • Program > Run Options… for more debugging options:

      • highlight current execution line

      • pause between line executions

      • wait for asynchronous function calls

      • choose a different run mode

    • Now detects and warns if a file has been externally modified

  • Data Examiners

    • New NetCDF data examiner (right-click > examine)

    • New geopoints data examiner (right-click > examine)

    • Added sorting to the Data tab of the ODB Examiner. Sorting can be enabled by clicking on any of the data column headers but it is only available if no data blocks are used by the ODB Examiner. By default for more than 10,000,000 data items to show, the ODB Examiner splits the data into individual blocks each having less than 10,000,000 items - this limit is configurable from the ‘Settings’ menu.

    • Fixed issue when displaying int values in the Odb Examiner

    • Added search facilities to all data examiners

  • New Module ‘BUFR Picker’

    • Provides users with better access to BUFR satellite data. Users can define several coordinate descriptors (with given coordinate values), thus providing access to parameters within the given coordinates.

    • Temporary documentation can be found in /home/graphics/cgx/docs/mvug-bufr-picker.pdf

  • Geo To Grib Module

    • Added new interpolation methods to determine how points are weighted according to their distance from the target point:

      • Reciprocal - default, and the same as in previous versions:

        if( dist == 0 )
           return grid_value(); //Here the point is on the Grid
        weight = 1/dist;
        
      • Exponential Mean - note the special case where Tolerance is zero:

        if ( Tolerance != 0 )
           weight = exp(-(dist/(pow(Tolerance,2))));
        else
           weight = dist ? 1 : 0;
        
      • Exponential Sum - same as Exponential Mean, but the final value is not divided by the total weight; when Tolerance is zero, this mode will compute the number of source points located at each target point.

  • WMS

    • Added preview to the plain editor mode of the WMS Client

    • WMS client editor now only accepts CRSs with a valid bounding box for WMS 1.3.0

    • Added proper handling for percent encoding in URLs

    • The WMS Client can now handle fractional ISO8601 dates (e.g. 1991-01) appearing in the TIME dimension

    • See also the relevant entries in “Plotting”

  • Other

    • Re-introduced VelStr icon (Velocity Potential / Stream Function)

    • Area selection dialog can now be used to select a single point

  • Support libraries

    • The latest Mars client, emoslib 000390 and GRIB_API 1.9.10

    • Magics 2.14.1