New version of ncview released - 1.93

• To: netcdfgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: New version of ncview released - 1.93
• From: "David Pierce" <dpierce@xxxxxxxx>
• Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 11:43:16 -0800 (PST)

Hello all,

I've released a new version of ncview, the X-windows visual netCDF file
browser.  You can download it from:

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/ncview_home_page.html

This release has a number of new features (outlined below) in addition to
the inevitable bug fixes.

What is ncview?
---------------
ncview is a visual browser for netCDF format files.  It runs under X
windows, or cygwin for MS Windows. Its purpose is to provide the quickest
possible way to give an good overview of the data in a netCDF file.  It
doesn't replace analysis tools such as Matlab, R, IDL, Ferret, etc; it
complements them, by being extremely quick and easy to use to get an
overview of the data in the file, but without in-depth analysis tools.  I
think anyone who works with netCDF files will find ncview a handy tool to
have around.

New features
------------
* Can now shrink the views of data sets as well as expand them, for data
sets that are bigger than the screen.  (To expand you left click on the
magnification button; to shrink you right-click on the magnification
button.)

* Along with the ability to shrink the data comes the option of how to
control the shrink.  Standard behavior is to take the mean of the source
data. This can be bad for integer categorical data such as land cover
categories.  Command line switch "-shrink_mode" sets the shrinking to use
the most common integer value (mode) of the source data instead of the
mean.  This can also be selected on the fly from the options menu (press
the 'Opts' button to access).

* Much faster startup when viewing a large number of files with many
variables each.

* When a file has more than 40 variables (default), ncview will now put up
menus to select the variable, organized by the effective (non-degenerate)
number of dimensions each variable has.  The number of variables needed
before ncview switches from 'list' style display of variables to 'menu'
style can be set on the command line via the '-listsel_max NNN' flag.  So,
for example, you could have the previous behavior (always list selection)
by setting NNN to a very high number, or always have menu selection by
setting NNN to 0.

* When using the list style of variable selection, the color of the
buttons is coded to show the number of dimensions the variable has.  This
can be disabled with command line switch '-no_color_ndims', or in the
app-defaults file (where the colors that are used can be set as well).

* Time decoding has been extended to include some of the common CF
compliant calendar descriptions.  "Standard", "gregorian", "365_day",
"noleap", and "360_day" are supported.

* 'bounds' attributes on dimensions are now recognized.  In particular,
they are decoded for the time dimension, and the time/date of the midpoint
of the specified interval is displayed.  The bounds along the scan axis
are displayed along with the center value.

* Installation is easier; more defaults are compiled in, so ncview works
well even if it's not installed correctly.

* Overlays are now built into the code instead of loaded externally
(though you can still specify a custom overlay from an external file if
you want).  I've added a higher-resolution world coastlines overlay and a
USA states overlay, in addition to the previously available selections. 
Ncview will automatically put on the coastlines if there are indications
they would be useful.

* You can now press 'q' in the color contour window to quit ncview.

* Reports of the pointer location now work when log axes are used (X, Y,
or both).

* Colormaps are now compiled in (although user custom ones are still
recognized, as before). I've added a black and white colormap, and a
'ssec' one.

Bug reports are always appreciated, especially if the netCDF file that
triggers the bug can be made available to me.

Regards,

--Dave

---------------------------------------------------------------
David W. Pierce        / Climate Research Division
Scripps Inst. Oceanog. / (858) 534-8276 (voice)
dpierce@xxxxxxxx       / (858) 534-8561 (fax)
---------------------------------------------------------------