McIDAS User's Guide
Version 2016.2

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Terminology

The terms below are used throughout this guide. Remember, because a workstation can store and display data, it can act as a server and a client.

Term Definition
Alias a short, user-defined name representing an ADDE dataset name; for example, the alias GV1 might represent the dataset name SSEC-RT/GOES-1KVIS
Client workstation receiving and displaying data
Dataset collection of one or more files with a common format; for example, one dataset may consist of areas 101 to 104, another dataset may consist of MD files 1 to 10
Dataset Name name used by ADDE to reference a dataset; the dataset name consists of a group name and a descriptor name separated by a slash ( / ); for example, SSEC-RT/GOES-1KVIS
Descriptor name used to reference a dataset; for example, a dataset of areas 105 to 108 containing GOES visible data at 4 km resolution might have the descriptor GOES-VIS-4K
File Number number used to reference a McIDAS format file (the standard McIDAS numbering scheme)
Format file format; McIDAS formats include area, grid and MD; non-McIDAS formats include HDF and netCDF
Group name used to reference a collection of descriptors; used by the client to determine which server should receive data requests
Position absolute or time-relative position of a file in a dataset; position numbers greater than zero represent an absolute position in the dataset; position numbers less than or equal to zero represent a relative position, 0 is the most recent and -1 is the next most recent; for example, if a dataset has four images with times 13 UTC, 14 UTC, 15 UTC and 12 UTC, they have the positions -2, -1, 0 and -3
Server machine storing and supplying data
Type data Type:  image, grid, point, navigation, or text

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