McIDAS Status Report-October, 1997

McIDAS Since the User Committee-sponsored workshop in June, the following areas have received most of the attention for the McIDAS support staff at Unidata:

• Produce a McIDAS-X, -OS2 Version 7.201 distributions
• Produce McIDAS-XCD Version 7.20 distributions
• Develop a Tcl/Tk-based GUI for McIDAS-X 7.2x
• Experiment with a Java GUI for McIDAS-OS2
• Prepare presentations for the September-October training workshops
  • Incorporate ADDE use in the McIDAS Learning Guide
  • Update presentations to reflect new McIDAS functionality
• Receive Java JWS training (inhouse at MMM)

The 7.201 distribution combines the SSEC FastTrack 7.201 (experimental) distribution with Unidata additions and bugfixes. The SSEC McIDAS-XCD distribution is totally contained in the Unidata McIDAS-X distribution; it is a separate package for Unidata McIDAS-OS2. Our intention is to not release 7.201 to the community at-large, but, rather, to make it the basis of our transition to the McIDAS ADDE applications. We will be using this distribution in our Fall training workshop.

Technical

• AMS articles
  • Unidata Path to Platform Independence
  • Accessing McIDAS programs through a Java vased Graphical User Interface

Outreach activities

There are several ongoing outreach activities:

• interactions with representatives of University of Colorado's Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D) on dynamic glossary concepts use in community supported station tables (Yoksas, Murray, Bates & Kambic)
• interactions with the NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) on:
  • possibility becoming an IDD injection site for profiler data (Yoksas & Miller)
  • accessibility of 6-minute profiler data in netCDF (Miller & Yoksas)
  • availability of ACARS data (Miller & Yoksas)
  • design specifications of FX-Net (Java workstation) (Yoksas & Domenico)
  • discussions relating to software package that ETL is developing to analyze 6-minute profiler data (Yoksas & Miller)
• interactions with Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) on:
  • availability of 15-min GOES-8/9 data (4 km VIS, IR; 8 km H2O) from their FTP server; all data is 2-byte and not "corrected" for oversampling in element dimension
  • possibility of providing GMS and FY-2 (Chinese polar orbiter) data in McIDAS AREA format
  • possibility of their acting as an IDD injection node for their imagery data