Version 4.5 Updates
Test Version 4.5.7
Introduced 2015-10-07 (Linux desktops, lxab and lxc clusters, cgb)
At ECMWF:
Installed as metview4_new
Built with Magics 2.25.2.
Built with GRIB_API 1.14.1
Built with ODB_API version 0.10.5
Built with emoslib 000411.
Tephigrams: added Thermo Grid and Thermo Plotting icons for controlling the plotting of the background and curves of a tephigram. Plotting of wind arrows is still controlled by the Wind Plotting icon. Full drag and drop support is now implemented between the various “Thermo” icons.
Cross Section: added support for plotting cross sections of wind vectors. Users are now able to customise the scaling of the vertical wind if desired.
Cross Section: added new parameter to the Cross Section View and Cross Section Data icons: Horizontal Point Mode, which now allows the points along the transect line to be computed either via interpolation of the surrounding grid points (the default behaviour) or using the nearest grid point (the new option).
Cross Section: revised method to determine which pressure levels to interpolate onto when converting from model level data. The new scheme ensures that the plot continues down to the bottom even in cases where there is extreme orography.
Cross Section: added parameters to allow a user-defined list of pressure levels to interpolate onto when converting from model level data. See Cross Section Data and Cross Section View.
Plotting: parameter Symbol Text Blanking in the Symbol Plotting icon is now available in the table modes
Plotting: new Coastlines parameters available: Map Label Font, Map Label Font Style and Map Label Blanking
Display Window: the Cursor Data can now be significantly faster (e.g. 100x) with some large fields. Note that this requires Magics 2.25.2.
Display Window: some options in the Export dialogue from the plot window were erroneously displayed as plain strings instead of a fixed list of possible values.
User Interface: now closes properly during a system shutdown
GRIB: ensured that Metview now works with negative forecast steps (when built with GRIB_API 1.15.0)
GRIB: Metview now uses higher-level GRIB_API keys for checking flags relating to grid interpretation. This does not fix any known bugs, but should be safer.
Build: installers can now specify a different path to install Metview’s executables by supplying to CMake a path relative to the base install directory, for example:
-DMETVIEW_INSTALL_EXE_BIN_DIR=lib/metview/bin
Build: fixed issue when building Metview’s fortran modules with Intel compilers.
Build: Metview now builds with Qt5. There is an issue with the main menu on Mac OS X which seems to affect other applications; the menu becomes active only after switching context to and then from another application.
Build: added the ability to run post-installation tests for added confidence in the installation. From the build directory:
cd tests/macros ./post_install_tests.sh
Test Version 4.5.6
Introduced 2015-06-17 (Linux desktops, lxab and lxc clusters, ecgate)
At ECMWF:
Installed as metview4_new (module swap metview/new)
Built with Magics 2.25.1.
Built with GRIB_API 1.13.1
Built with ODB_API version 0.10.2
Built with emoslib 000406
Export Version 4.5.6
External release 2015-06-16
Version 4.5.6-export became available.
Plotting: fixed issue where plotting of small details in PDF and PNG format gave a bad plot because of outline attributes which were too thick
Plotting: fixed rare issue where the plotting of a data file which is a symbolic link could fail
GRIB: fixed issue where Metview’s internal GRIB navigation routines did not correctly compute the coordinates of the points on a GRIB field which is a sub-area of a reduced Gaussian grid. This affects a number of functions and modules, including Grib to Geopoints, Cross Section and the Macro functions nearest_gridpoint() and interpolate().
Grib Examiner: fixed issue where the Grib Examiner could crash when switched to Namespace mode
Examiners: fixed issue where the data examiner applications (e.g. the Grib Examiner) could crash when closed; this was normally not visible, but could show up on the Mac OS X
Stations: the Stations module has been updated to use the latest list of WMO stations
User Interface: allow the dropping of Metview 3 (e.g. PCONT) icons into the icon editor of Metview 4 (e.g. MCONT) icons to aid migration
Startup: fixed the display of the Metview version when typing “metview -h”
Default Version upgraded to 4.5.5
Upgrade 2015-06-09 (Linux desktops, lx* clusters, ecgate)
Version 4.5.5 became the default version (command metview) at ECMWF
To use another version, please use the modules system:
module avail metview module switch metview/x.x.x
Test Version 4.5.5
Introduced 2015-05-27 (Linux desktops, lxab and lxc clusters, ecgate)
At ECMWF:
Installed as metview4_new (module swap metview/new)
Built with Magics 2.24.7.
Built with GRIB_API 1.13.1
Built with ODB_API version 0.10.2
Built with emoslib 000406
MARS: when building Metview outside ECMWF, MARS access through the Web API is enabled by default without the need to specify a Database parameter in the requests.
Plotting: fixed rare issue where plots could fail when producing multiple PostScript pages
Plotting: fixed issue where plots could fail when producing large numbers (>1000) of output graphics files in batch mode
ODB: improved the finding of the odb_migrator executable when filtering ODB-1 data
Export Version 4.5.4
External release 2015-05-14
Version 4.5.4-export became available.
Note: it is recommended to use at least Magics 2.24.3 in order to build with plotting enabled.
Test Version 4.5.4
Introduced 2015-05-12 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster, ecgb)
At ECMWF:
Installed as metview4_new
Built with Magics 2.24.6.
Built with GRIB_API 1.13.1
Built with ODB_API version 0.10.2
Built with emoslib 000402
Legend: added new parameter to the Legend icon - Legend Automatic Position. Can have one of two values: top (default) and right. This allows a legend to be automatically positioned to the right of the plot without the need to manually specify its coordinates
Contouring: now, when Contour Shade Technique is set to Grid Shading, all interpolation of the input GRIB field is automatically deactivated without the user having to set additional parameters, true to its original intention (e.g. Contour Method previously had to be set to Linear)
Contouring: parameter Contour Reference Level is now available even if Contour Highlight is Off
Contouring: allow access to the parameter Contour Internal Reduction Factor to allow fine-grain control over contouring of certain fields
Plotting: now the page_frame parameters from view icons are honoured
NetCDF: the ncdump panel of the NetCDF Examiner was not working on the new workstations at ECMWF; now it is
Reprojection: all the meta-data in the Product section of the input GRIB file is now transferred to the resulting GRIB file
Macro: it is now possible to specify that a coastlines definition be plotted on top of the data - just put the coastlines variable at the end of the plot command (or anywhere after the first data variable)
Macro: fixed issue where putting a visdef variable at the start of a plot() command could cause a crash
Macro: when supplying a relative path when using multiple output graphics file formats, the files will now be generated in relative to where the macro is located
Macro: improved printing of error messages from other modules
Macro: fixed an issue where the function nearest_gridpoint() could return the wrong point in a particular edge case where the longitude is beyond the last point, e.g. in a 1x1 degree grid, asking for the nearest gridpoint to (0, 359.1) returned the wrong result
Stations: a new parameter, Fail on Error was added. If this is set to No, then a macro can trap the condition where it does not find a matching station by checking whether the return result is nil.
SCM: fix to allow the running of SCM executables on the classroom machines
SCM: fixed occasional crash in SCM profile editor
Mac OS X: chosen better default viewers for image formats such as PNG and PostScript
Mac OS X: graphics are now crisper due to the choice of a different Qt rendering engine on this platform
Export Version 4.5.3
External release 2015-03-12
Version 4.5.3-export became available.
Note: it is recommended to use Magics 2.24.1 in order to build with plotting enabled.
Test Version 4.5.3
Introduced 2015-03-12 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster, ecgb)
At ECMWF:
Installed as metview_new (module swap metview/new ;metview)
Built with Magics 2.24.1.
Built with GRIB_API 1.13.0
Built with ODB_API version 0.10.2
Built with emoslib 000400
WMS: fixed issue where a configuration file required for correct operation of Metview’s Web Map Client module was not installed
Desktop: it’s now easier to create a new icon: from the Create new Icon dialogue, pressing Return will create an instance of the currently selected icon
Desktop: fixed issue where creation of a new icon could fail
Plotting: fixed issue where the MAGPLUS_HOME environment variable could interfere with the correct finding of Magics resource files
Export Version 4.5.2
External release 2015-03-09
Version 4.5.2-export became available.
Note: it is recommended to use Magics 2.24.1 in order to build with plotting enabled.
Test Version 4.5.2
Introduced 2015-03-05 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster, ecgb)
At ECMWF:
Installed as metview_new (module swap metview/new ; metview)
Built with Magics 2.24.1.
Built with GRIB_API 1.13.0
Built with ODB_API version 0.10.2
Built with emoslib 000400
Plot export: when exporting a plot from the interactive display window, the available options for the selected file format are now presented in a dialogue if the user clicks on the spanner icon next to the output format
Macro: when supplying a relative path to an output graphics file, the file will now be generated in relative to where the macro is located
Display Window:
dropping of Legend and Text Plotting icons now more consistent behaviour
fixed an issue where using an old pcont icon or plotting BUFR data could result in an empty plot
automatic generation of Macro from Simple Formula icon could result in incorrect code - fixed
upload to Weather Room screen updated to work with new framework
Display Window icon: more flexibility when designing page layouts
Desktop improvements:
the status bar now shows information about a link’s target when the mouse hovers over an icon which is a symbolic link
the mouse wheel behaves more nicely when scrolling through an icon editor which contains comboboxes
Export Version 4.5.1
External release 2015-02-11
Version 4.5.1-export became available.
Note: this version requires Magics 2.24.0 in order to build with plotting enabled.
Contouring: added new Magics parameters for more control over the rainbow contouring:
contour_line_thickess_rainbow_list, contour_line_thickness_rainbow_list_policy, contour_line_style_rainbow_list and contour_line_style_rainbow_list_policy
added an example to the Gallery illustrating how rainbow contouring can replace Metview 3’s split contours - see Rainbow Isolines Example
PostScript output: uses the new Magics default of RGB colour space (was CMYK) when producing PostScript output in order to maintain consistency between versions of GhostScript installed on different platforms
Geo View: allow MAP_VERTICAL_LONGITUDE to be set in Geos projection in order to simulate various geostationary satellites. Note that the coastlines have some stray lines when certain globe rotations are used.
Hovmoeller: fixed issue where an empty plot was obtain when the requested line was exactly vertical, i.e. if the longitudes at each end were the same
Cross Section: support for general height-based coordinate GRIB data
Desktop:
fixed a crash which occurred when running a macro which generates its own user interface
icons moved into a Folder icon now get a sensible position
fixed issue where editing some specific Metview 3 icons caused a crash
in the Contouring icon editor, parameter CONTOUR_LINE_COLOUR_RAINBOW_COLOUR_LIST now has a proper colour list helper tool
Build: like much other ECMWF software, Metview now uses CMake for its build system (see Installation Guide)
now supports Mac OS X - we welcome feedback on this, and are aware that there are some minor issues on retina displays
Motif support disabled by default, but can be enabled
parallel builds now supported on multi-core machines, e.g. make -j 8
Test Version 4.5.0
Introduced 2015-01-06 (Linux desktops, lxab cluster, ecgb)
At ECMWF:
Installed as metview4_new
Built with Magics 2.23.6.
Built with GRIB_API 1.12.3
Built with ODB_API version 0.9.31
Built with emoslib 000400
User Interface: the new Desktop user interface (see New Desktop user interface) is now the default
Desktop: various improvements, including:
improvements in colour-selection helper in icon editors
‘rename’ action added to icon context menus (shortcut: F2)
icon filter is now case-insensitive
fixed case-sensitivity issue in the New Icon dialogue
fixed issue where when a folder tab was moved it became deselected
fixed issue where creating a new icon could shift the position of existing icons
icon bounding rectangle has been slightly enlarged
Plotting: fixed issue where the association of visdefs to data did not work in some cases with multiple data sets
Macro: fixed issue where the distance() function returned an invalid result; this could happen when one of the geopoints was at exactly the same location as the target point
Macro: various gridpoint functions now support GRIBs which are on sub-areas of reduced lat/lon grids
Wind: Metview now recognises 10ua and10va as a wind vector pair
Coastlines: now have new value FULL for parameter MAP_COASTLINE_RESOLUTION
BUFR Examiner: masterTableVersion and localTableVersion have been added to the default profile
Stations: updated the Stations database with the latest WMO stations
VAPOR: the VAPOR Prepare icon now supports experimental GRIB fields with variable height coordinates
Reprojection: uses new code to convert from satellite to regular lat/lon projection; note, however, that this module is no longer required for the plotting of satellite images stored in GRIB - Metview can now plot them directly.
Build: like much other ECMWF software, Metview now uses CMake for its build system (see Installation Guide)
now supports Mac OS X - we welcome feedback on this, and are aware that there are some minor issues on retina displays; other small issues may be present
Motif support disabled by default, but can be enabled