Configuring and extending the WDSS-II display

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Configuring and extending the WDSS-II display

• Valliappa Lakshmanan
• National Severe Storms Laboratory University of
  Oklahoma
• lakshman_at_ou.edu

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Mesonet interactor

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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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)

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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