6.1. AWIPS NetCDF¶
The AWIPS backend is used to create AWIPS compatible NetCDF files. The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is a program used by the United States National Weather Service (NWS) and others to view different forms of weather imagery. Once AWIPS is configured for specific products the AWIPS NetCDF backend can be used to provide compatible products to the system. The files created by this backend are compatible with AWIPS II (AWIPS I is no longer supported).
The AWIPS NetCDF backend takes remapped binary image data and creates an AWIPS-compatible NetCDF 3 file. To accomplish this the backend must rescale the image data to a 0-255 range, where 0 is a fill/invalid value. AWIPS requires unsigned byte integers for its data which results in this range. It then fills in a NetCDF file template with the rescaled image data.
Rescaling will attempt to fit the provided data in the best visual range for AWIPS, but can not always do this for outliers. To correct for this the AWIPS NetCDF backend also clips any post-rescaling values above 255 to 255 and any values below 0 to 0. This could result in “washed out” portions of data in the AWIPS NetCDF file.
Both the AWIPS backend and the AWIPS client must be configured to handle certain products over certain grids. By default the AWIPS backend is configured with the AWIPS configuration file that comes with Polar2Grid. This allows for the following grids to get created:
Grid Name Description 211e East CONUS 211w West CONUS 203 Alaska 204 Hawaii Warning
The AWIPS backend does not default to using any grid. Therefore, it is recommended to specify one or more grids for remapping by using the -g flag.
| author: | David Hoese (davidh) |
|---|---|
| organization: | Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) |
| copyright: | Copyright (c) 2012-2015 University of Wisconsin SSEC. All rights reserved. |
| date: | Jan 2013 |
| license: | GNU GPLv3 |
6.1.1. Command Line Arguments¶
usage: p2g_glue <frontend> awips [-h]
[--backend-configs [BACKEND_CONFIGS [BACKEND_CONFIGS ...]]]
[--rescale-configs [RESCALE_CONFIGS [RESCALE_CONFIGS ...]]]
- Options:
--backend-configs alternative backend configuration files --rescale-configs alternative rescale configuration files
