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Configuring and extending the WDSSII display

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Title: Configuring and extending the WDSSII display


1
Configuring and extending the WDSS-II display
  • Valliappa Lakshmanan
  • National Severe Storms Laboratory University of
    Oklahoma
  • lakshman_at_ou.edu

2
Wg configuration
  • There are two parts of wgs configuration
  • Permanent configuration
  • For things like how to display products
  • Which colormaps to use
  • Which maps are available
  • User history
  • What products have been loaded up?
  • How many windows are open?
  • What types of units?
  • Where to save the snapshots?
  • Well talk about the permanent configuration
    first.

3
wg is dumb
  • The display does not know about any products or
    maps.
  • Only about types of products
  • You have to tell it things like
  • Reflectivity is an image-type product
  • 50dBZ reflectivity should be shown in red
  • Lightning strikes are shown as and
  • Surface observations have a time-history (trends)
    but not a location-history (tracks)

4
w2config
  • All such things that you tell the display are
    specified in your w2config.
  • The default set of configurations comes with the
    WDSS-II build.
  • You can over-ride it by specifying your own
    w2config directory
  • setenv W2_CONFIG_LOCATION /w2config/WDSS2/w2con
    fig
  • wg will look in your directory first, and if you
    dont say anything about that product, it will
    look in the default directory.

5
Managing w2config
  • For temporary changes and changes that your
    colleagues will not be interested in, use your
    own w2config
  • Add/edit the default w2config if you
  • Create a new product
  • Correct or improve an existing products
    configuration
  • Do something you need to share with others
  • If you change the default, you should check it
    in.
  • If you dont check it in, someone else may make
    other changes to the default and you may lose
    your work.

6
misc/wgproducts.xml
  • misc/wgproducts.xml is the most critical display
    configuration file
  • It specifies the type of interactor that will
    be used for that product
  • The interactor determines
  • Mouse functionality
  • Functionality available
  • The tab page shown
  • One of basic, stormrelvel, mesonet, lightning,
    trends
  • By default, the interactor is basic
  • unless the name of the product has Table in it
  • Documentation of format at top of file.

7
Basic interactor
  • The basic interactor is what most image-type
    products need.
  • This is the default if the product is not
    configured.
  • E.g Satellite IR image, Radar reflectivity image
    etc.
  • Regardless of data form (RadialSet, LatLonGrid,
    etc.)

8
Stormrelvel interactor
  • Stormrelvel is just like the basic except
  • Has additional functionality to add a vector
    quantity to data values.
  • The vector quantity is the storm movement
  • Specified in wgproducts.xml for Velocity so
    that you get this interactor for Velocity,
    DealiasedVelocity, etc.

9
Trends interactor
  • The trends interactor is what is used for tabular
    data
  • Single icon on the screen
  • Not an image
  • Can obtain time history (trend)
  • The RowName column has to be consistent
  • E.g SCIT, MDA, etc.

10
Lightning interactor
  • Is just like trends (tabular) except
  • Specified not at a particular time but within a
    time window (last 1 minute last 5 minutes, etc.)
  • Data from multiple time steps
  • The RowName will not be consistent, so no trends
    or tracks.

11
Mesonet interactor
  • Is just like trends except
  • Multiple icons that can be individually turned
    on/off
  • Wind-barbs, surface temperature, dew point, etc.

12
A new interactor?
  • If you have ideas on a new product not adequately
    served by one of these interactors, please tell
    us.
  • We can do it, or we can show you how to do it.
  • The mesonet, for example, was a special case
    that a student created.
  • Easy to create others.

13
Misc/prodTextColors.xml
  • prodTextColors.xml gives you control over how
    your product is presented.
  • We recommend always using the full name of the
    product everywhere e.g Reflectivity
  • And assigning an abbreviation Z in
    prodTextColors.xml
  • Can also assign blue so that the user can
    quickly pick it out of a list of products.
  • Documentation of format at top of file.

14
Misc/Colormaps
  • If your product is an image, then you often need
    to assign a colormap.
  • Maps data values (floats) to red-green-blue (rgb)
    colors.
  • By default, well look for a colormap file with
    the same name as the product
  • E.g InfraredTemperature

15
Product-specified colormaps
  • Some products (e.g LightingDensityForecast_030min
    ) will request a colormap to use
  • By having an Attribute named ColorMap
  • Will be in the netcdf file, for example
  • Useful when it is impossible to list exact
    productname (the time period of forecast is a
    user-specification)

16
Colormaps/discards
  • If a colormap file with the exact name doesnt
    exist, wg will look to see if part of the product
    name can be discarded
  • Such prefixes and suffixes are listed in the
    colormaps/discards file
  • E.g _10min, _smoothed etc.
  • Discards applied to both product name and
    requested colormap name.
  • Documentation of format at top of file.

17
Color map configuration
  • There are two types of colormaps
  • Implicit
  • Specify a lowestBound, highestBound of values
  • And a bunch of colors
  • The data ranges will be automatically chosen
  • Explicit
  • Specify the data ranges
  • Can specify one or two colors for a data range
  • If two, then you get a smooth transition
  • Complete documentation of format found in
    colormaps/README

18
Default table configuration
  • With image products, you always need to provide a
    colormap.
  • There is no default color map.
  • Tabular products do have a default configuration
  • Your desktop default colors for tables
  • Square icons
  • Good enough for debugging purposes
  • Remember that you may need to specify that your
    product is a table in wgproducts.xml

19
Table configuration
  • For more fancy tables, provide a table
    configuration
  • w2config/tables/ProductName
  • Can specify
  • way to sort tables
  • How each cell is to be colored
  • How many digits to use for display (7.2 or 7.20?)
  • Format documented in tables/README

20
Icon configuration
  • For more fancy icons, provide an icon
    configuration
  • w2config/icons/ProductName
  • Can specify
  • Way to sort icons (level of detail)
  • How each icon is to be colored
  • N-sided polygon enclosure
  • Size and color of border
  • Format documented in icons/README
  • Icon displays work best with constant-sized text
    in them.

21
Trends configuration
  • For more fancy trends, provide a trend
    configuration
  • w2config/icons/ProductName/ColumnName
  • Can specify
  • Min/Max/tics of graph
  • color
  • Format documented in trends/README
  • Can also have time-height trends

22
User history
  • The user history/preferences are saved in
    HOME/.wgpref
  • Can change this by specifying a different
    configuration file at startup
  • wg c /tmp/blankpref
  • Will be created afresh if the file doesnt exist.
  • Can have different files for different projects.
  • With different sources, layouts, etc.
  • I save the preference files that I use in making
    snapshots (I check it into CVS)
  • To recreate the same snapshot if needed.

23
Display units vs data units
  • The permanent configuration files should all be
    in SI units.
  • The data should also be in SI units.
  • Data readout will convert if necessary
  • E.g. if colormap specifies Kilometers but data
    are in meters, the readout will be in km
  • If you have users who want things in English
    units
  • e.g the NWS
  • create separate (2nd) configuration file in
    English units
  • put into w2config/englishUnits
  • If the user selects English Units
  • wg will look first in w2config/englishUnits
  • if the product is not found, it will look in
    w2config

24
Adding background maps
  • Add your map location to maps/maps.xml
  • Changing either the default and checking it in
  • Or editing your own copy
  • Documentation of maps.xml format is at the top of
    the file.
  • The map has to be a ESRI shapefile and its
    associated database files.
  • Use shp for polygons and lines (e.g state
    boundaries and rivers)
  • Use point for points (e.g cities)
  • Can also use
  • bitmap image, but not recommended.
  • 3D digital elevation maps using topoBreak to
    create a netcdf file
  • Step-by-step answer to this in the WDSS-II forum.

25
Configuration of algorithms
  • The display is just another WDSS-II tool
  • Algorithms also use w2config
  • Radar volume coverage patterns are in
    w2config/vcps, not hardwired anywhere
  • w2config/algs with specialized configuration
  • QCNN.xml has normalization numbers
  • w2tornposs has SVM weights
  • w2merger.xml has non-uniform height settings
  • alarms.xml for rules determining when a
    polygon-based alarm should be raised.
  • Use it as a supplement to the command-line for
    parameters users may not set, or find difficult
    to set

26
Next
  • What you can do
  • Change some of the display configurations for
    existing products
  • Does the display of those products change?
  • Next
  • Writing a new WDSS-II algorithm or tool
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