NOTICE: This version of the NSF Unidata web site (archive.unidata.ucar.edu) is no longer being updated.
Current content can be found at unidata.ucar.edu.
To learn about what's going on, see About the Archive Site.
>From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Marianne=20K=F6nig?=" <address@hidden> >Organization: EUMETSAT >Keywords: 200301090846.h098k4t14949 McIDAS EUMETSAT MSG ADDE Hi Marianne, >This is probably one of my stupid mcidas questions again, but I am so >stuck on this issue that I need some expert's advice on that: I will help if I can. >what I am trying to do is write an ADDE Server for our in-house format >of MSG data (yes, we have first images!!!!!). Wonderful! >All that is very fine, >and I can do an IMGLIST and IMGDISP using some sort of ..aget and >..adir programs. How do I manage to get something like IMGPROBE >working? IMPROBE justs makes an AGET call, so if you have IMGDISP working, IMGPROBE should work with very little/no effort. >The problem I see is the filename: My servers sort of >construct a filename from the user input of day, time and band, but of >course IMGPROBE does not know any of that. IMGPROBE will know all of these things _if_ you are probing an image that you have displayed in a frame. Have you tried that, or are you trying to run IMGPROBE on a dataset member directly? >For normal AREA files I see >that IMGPROBE reads in the first AREA directory entry which is the >position within the dataset - and constructs a filename from that. For datasets that are not composed of AREA files or ones where the data files do not follow AREA file naming conventions, the server will need to organize (sort) all of the images in the dataset and then extract information from the one that matches your request. This request might be specified by day/time/band, or it may be specified by dataset position number and band. >I >cannot see a solution for this, but I am sure that must exist as many >people have written servers which should tackle the same problem. The servers I wrote for radar images (the NEXRAD Level III images and composites in formats other than AREA) do the needed sorting work while processing image requests. Yours will need to do the same thing. >The >problem probably is the same with any other of the IMG.. commands, but >I'd be happy if I could at least get IMGPROBE to workl. I worked my way through the various IMG* commands when getting my servers to work. Thank you so much for your help, I think I understand your problem, but please let me restate it so you can verify that I understand: o you have your own ADIR and AGET servers for MSG images, and those servers are relying on day, time, and band specifications in the invocation command line in order to construct the name of a file that contains the data being requested o IMGPROBE when run directly from the command line specifying the keywords DATaset= and BANd= does not specify the information needed/expected by your servers If I have this right, the "simple" way of making things work is to display the image using IMGDISP in a frame, and then run IMGPROBE without specifying either of the DATaset= or BANd= keywords. IMGPROBE will then pickup the day, time, band, etc. from the frame directory and include that in the request to the server. This should be all of the information that is needed by your servers to construct the file name for the data to read. The downside to this approach, of course, is that you will sample at the resolution of the displayed image. The other thing that I would recommend -- and you are not going to like this one -- is to rewrite your servers to so that they have knowledge of the name space for the files that compose the dataset. They would then be able to sort the images into temporal order and extract information out of elements by dataset position number. This requires the server to do a log more work, but it makes it much more flexible. The good news is that the NEXRAD Level III servers I wrote are part of core McIDAS, so they can be used as an example of how to write the new server. I actually have three different servers that work for image data that is not in McIDAS AREA format. All three are based on the exact same routines contained in the NEXRAD Level III servers. I can provide advice with a rewrite if you choose to pursue that route. Of course, the work would be better done in Darmstadt or someplace warm like the Canary Isands ;-) >and many regards from the now extremely cold Germany, While it is cold in Germany, it has been extremely warm and dry here in Colorado. Three of us went skiing yesterday, and it was so warm I was removing my gloves while riding the chair lifts even at 12,000 ft (3650 m)! I am hoping that the temperature will drop and it will start snowing!! Tom >From address@hidden Thu Jan 9 09:34:10 2003 >Subject: Re: 20030109: McIDAS ADDE server for MSG imagery Tom, Thank you for the advice. Of course I tried the IMGPROBE, and that just does not work (and yes, I think you see my problem): IMGPROBE (just the naked command like that), used on an IMGDISP displayed frame of MSG, comes back with "You must specify a DAY" (which probably comes from my server???) "ival for mcadir =-1000" "failed to set up directory server" Would you have an example of a simple image server plus a corresponding dataset that I could pick up from your ftp site which work with IMGPROBE (without sorting)? I suspect there is something wrong with my server ... Again, thank you, Marianne >From address@hidden Fri Jan 10 07:39:17 2003 >Subject: success .... Hi Tom, It's me again, and I found my mistake: I did not set the first area directory element within my servers to -1 to correctly populate the frame directory - and of course it took me about 4 hrs to go through all of IMGPROBE to find this out. But I am so happy now that this works. I am completely full of myself .... Have a wonderful weekend, Marianne >From address@hidden Mon Jan 13 01:35:17 2003 Tom, The day is pretty far where I create new servers that are even more elaborate than yours and you are on this beach lounge ... Mcidas still amazes me - the truth is I still have no clue why all this works We have horrible snow here today (unusual for Darmstadt), and it is supposed to turn into ice rain later this afternoon. To be on the safe side I took the train. Thank you for your help, Marianne