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The software is supported on numerous UNIX systems including Sun Solaris, HP/UX, Cray/UNICOS, IBM 6000/AIX, SGI/IRIX (64-bit and 32-bit), Digital Alpha OSF, and new in 98: LINUX on Intel PCs. The current NCAR Graphics package contains multiple user interfaces to accommodate diverse user skill levels and application needs.
Software is distributed on CD-ROM and by FTP. All of the software documentation is provided as hypertext on the World Wide Web. Hardcopy documentation, in the form of PostScript files, is also available via the web. Group staff currently maintain about 500,000 lines of C and Fortran code and 4,000 pages of hypertext documentation. The group also provides these services:
At the Fortran utility level, new math utilities have been added to aid the interpolation of data. The new packages are called NATGRID, DSGRID, and FITGRID. NATGRID, which employs a method of interpolation called "Natural Neighbor Interpolation," is more stable and flexible than the BIVAR package available with previous versions of NCAR Graphics. Users who have obtained early versions of this software are very pleased with it. DSGRID is a three-dimensional interpolator that uses a simple inverse distance weighted interpolation algorithm. FITGRID is an interpolation package for one and two-dimensional data that is based on Alan Cline's package Fitpack. All of these packages have NCL entry points, greatly enhancing the utility of NCL for data processing.
Also at the Fortran utility level, a new graphics utility called TDPACK was added. This is a full three-dimensional set of graphics utilities that greatly expand NCAR Graphics' ability to do 3D graphics. The package is capable of creating colored surfaces, lines, and points in three space as well as three-dimensional axis and text.
The final major upgrade to the Fortran utilities was to increase the resolution of the Ezmap database. This required building a custom editor to validate public-domain geographic data and convert it to a usable form. The new map database is a huge improvement. Users can now zoom in on very small sections of the globe and have very well-defined borders and coastlines.
NCL has been substantially upgraded with the 4.1 release. During FY1998, over 200 functions and procedures were added to NCL. The majority of these functions and procedures are for data processing and analysis. NCL is currently used extensively on winterpark by users from many different divisions. Usage of NCL is increasing at a very brisk pace with new users starting to use NCL weekly.
A new document was produced by GDA staff to help users get started using NCL. This document is available in both hardcopy and online. It contains real-world examples and discusses everything from file I/O with NCL to configuring graphics. The document is named Getting Started Using NCL.
NCAR DataVision is a "point-and-click" GUI that combines the functionality of the subroutine libraries and NCL into a single application. NCAR DataVision's GUI will allow a user to browse through directories of data, select a file, view the contents of the file, select variables from the file, and plot them using a wide variety of options. There will be options for shaping variables, running NCL scripts, and attaching scripts and dynamically linked objects to mouse events, thus providing a flexible, extensible, and customizable GUI that can be tailored to meet a wide variety of data analysis and publication graphics requirements.
Essentially all data access, processing, and visualization capabilities now available through NCL and the subroutine libraries will be available through the GUI's simple "point-and-click" interface.
The core infrastructure of NCAR DataVision has been developed. This means the main windows and internal functionality needed to support NCAR DataVision's functional specification have been implemented. Many new features were added in the past year to make NCAR DataVision more usable.
The NCAR DataVision product will require a new set of documentation describing its use. This document will be developed during FY1999, and it will be an online document in the style of the the NCAR Graphics 4.1 documentation.
NCL was developed by the Graphics and Data Analysis Group (formerly NCAR Graphics Group) to be used as an integrated data processing and visualization environment, not merely an interactive graphics package. To support CGD's CSM effort, SCD has for the past year made NCL freely available to the CSM community. This facilitates scientists sharing CSM processing and analysis applications worldwide. Furthermore, SCD has contributed about 1-1.5 FTEs to support the processor development. This development has been going on since February 1997, and many CGD users are already developing and running processing scripts on winterpark using NCL.
The responsibilities of the 1-1.5 FTEs assigned to this project are to incorporate processing codes in NCL as NCL functions and procedures rather than using the customary Fortran language. Some examples of these processing applications, which have already been added to NCL to support the CSM processor, include spherical harmonics (SPHEREPACK3), eigen vector analysis, statistical operations, reading data in CCM history file format, and reading Cray binary data. In FY1998, more generic processing capability was added. Most of the processing functionality currently being added comes from NCAR's math libraries. The GDA Group is currently prioritizing the NCAR math libraries by determining which math libraries are used the most.
In addition to the extension of NCL's functionality, staff have developed informational web pages, instructional courses, online documentation, and provided consulting to CGD users.
CGD evaluated many commercial packages before selecting NCL as the tool to implement the CSM processor. NCL's functionality and flexible data access were some of the reasons for NCL's selection. However, a big reason that should be emphasized is that the Graphics and Data Analysis Group can provide the needed support services for this project. Were CGD to select a commercial tool, modification and adaptation of the tool to meet CGD's needs could be difficult and perhaps impossible. It is the rapid service that SCD can provide with NCL that was critical in CGD's selection.
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