GR level 3 or GR level 2AE for chasing

[Mark Blue]

Thank you. That's quite a size difference and it's nice to be privy to the actual numbers versus the generalizations we normally hear. I should hang out in the owners forum a little more. I know that RDale will be there when I eventually arrive!

 

[Brett Roberts]

RadarScope plots level 2 and level 3 data in the same mobile app. It's probably why many chasers are dumping their GR laptops for RadarScope tablets. They recognize the value of having these products combined, the efficiency that provides, and the common ground they share.

To be fair, RadarScope is not plotting L2 data, per se. It's plotting single-tilt "slices" of L2 data that are pruned and processed on a middleman server run by WDT. When you factor in bandwidth, this isn't something that most individuals, or even really small companies, have the capacity to do just for the purpose of making their own small-market program better. Perhaps AllisonHouse or comparable services could do it, though, if other program authors were interested in implementing a similar solution.

I also don't see that many chasers dumping their laptops for RadarScope yet, despite its availability on the market for several years now. It has a ways to go before it nears the level of functionality and customizability that GR offers. As I expressed in another thread on this topic recently, we're hopefully heading toward a nexus between the old-style heavyweights like GR and the new-style mobile apps that are generally more convenient and "seamless" (i.e., for getting and plotting your GPS location without a fuss), yet lack features. I'm sure we all wish that day would arrive faster.

 

[Skip Talbot]

It's level 2 data, it's just packaged differently. A piece of the volume is still the same data since many users will only be looking at the lowest tilt anyway. I think developers or mets get hung up on this. The application doesn't have to be designed around how this data is packaged, and the user bothered with the details. From the chaser end user's viewpoint, they don't really care or need the entire volume. So you just send the lowest tilt and they're happy.

A quick and dirty solution that a single developer could deploy and work for any single user would be to write an app that strips the lowest tilt off the L2 volume, then pushes this out to the user's website or FTP. The user would run this app on their desktop computer at home. Then the user's mobile radar app then just grabs this file from their own website or FTP instead of the entire volume. It might not be as fast or reliable since you're using your home internet connection, but it certainly could be done. Definitely a good place for AH to step in.

 

[Mike Gibson]

The SuperRes "L3" data is defined in ICD2620001, product number 153 (BR), 154 (BV), and 155 (SW). Those products aren't available on the public NWS L3 server or on NOAAPort (I assume it's only available on the full FOS feed). You can see the directories for them on the public NWS server but they were only used during the KOAX test a couple of years ago. For example, here's the SuperRes BR05 directory:

http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/SL.us008001/DF.of/DC.radar/DS.00s0r/

I've requested them but I'm only one person.

Stripping the sweeps out of a single L2 file is not terribly difficult. Stripping them out of *all* the NEXRADs in real time is not trivial. It requires the complete L2 feed and high disk system bandwidth. You're writing the data twice, not to mention serving it up to potentially thousands of client programs on the other end. Not to mention that the L2 BV is aliased, so you'll have to add in dealiasing of 155 x 14 sweeps in real time, too.

Mike

 

[Skip Talbot]

The quick and dirty example I posted above would only need to work with the current station the user has selected. Yeah, it would be way too much for a single user to process every volume in the country. Maybe a data provider like AllisonHouse could though.

Regardless of that though, it's not really a problem to send the entire volume over to the user with a 4G connection. Those volumes running several megabytes only take a few seconds to download. If it's too much bandwidth for the user they could simply turn it off and switch back to level 3. It would be nice to have the option to do so in the same app though.

 

[rdale]

RadarScope plots level 2 and level 3 data in the same mobile app. It's probably why many chasers are dumping their GR laptops for RadarScope tablets. They recognize the value of having these products combined, the efficiency that provides, and the common ground they share.

As we see above it's not true Level 2 data. In any case, they still can't figure out how to do SRV with it? And I wouldn't dump my GR laptop until RS can figure out how to add METARS and turn off the stupid FFWs

 

[Skip Talbot]

It's not level 2 data in the purist sense that you're getting the entire volume in its original form. Again though, the chaser user doesn't really care about this or need that entire volume. If they're seeing the same bins in the same radials on the tilt they're interested in, then it's effectively the same level 2 data.

I haven't dumped my GR laptop and won't for awhile at least. There are applications working towards solutions to these issues though, such as combining L2 and L3 into an application effective for chasing.

 

[Rob H]

To be fair, RadarScope is not plotting L2 data, per se. It's plotting single-tilt "slices" of L2 data that are pruned and processed on a middleman server run by WDT. When you factor in bandwidth, this isn't something that most individuals, or even really small companies, have the capacity to do just for the purpose of making their own small-market program better. Perhaps AllisonHouse or comparable services could do it, though, if other program authors were interested in implementing a similar solution.

Any developer can do this, it's fairly trivial. You could probably even handle the bandwidth on a free Amazon EC2 if you wanted it ~*in the cloud*~

Stripping the sweeps out of a single L2 file is not terribly difficult. Stripping them out of *all* the NEXRADs in real time is not trivial. It requires the complete L2 feed and high disk system bandwidth. You're writing the data twice, not to mention serving it up to potentially thousands of client programs on the other end. Not to mention that the L2 BV is aliased, so you'll have to add in dealiasing of 155 x 14 sweeps in real time, too.

160 WSR88D sites * 20MB volumes. Even if you wanted to pre-emptively slice every volume, it's entirely feasible and isn't that computationally intensive based on what I've seen of the binary format. Why wouldn't you just slice on request and cache the results, though? On a big weather day in the Plains, VNX/TLX/ICT/etc. will be used, but I'm willing to bet CLX and BHX won't have a single person viewing them. Also, if you're worried about serving up the data and bandwidth costs, why not just have the client download the whole volume and strip it client-side? It's a little wasteful, but removes that hurdle.

I'm not really seeing any technical limitations, but I would completely understand if the answer was "too much work for the small amount of demand". I wouldn't be surprised if eventually someone did something like this, however. There are at least several chaser/developers out there right now with personal-use radar apps that actually work.

edit: Yes, the polling method is different, and there are some minimally different UI controls, but I'm guessing there is a lot of shared code between GR2/GR3. The shell of the program itself, the slippy map, UI interactions, etc. I wouldn't discount merging the two apps together. Just a suggestion.

 

[Brian Russell]

i would love to see gr level 3 and gr level 2 ae written for apple products such as the macbook air or pro. then i wouldnt have to consider buying a newer windows laptop...which i really cannot stand windows products and refuse to dual boot my macbook pro with any windows version. if gr level 3 and gr level 2ae were written for apple, i would have the ultimate chase laptop.

 

[Rob H]

ithen i wouldnt have to consider buying a newer windows laptop...which i really cannot stand windows products and refuse to dual boot my macbook pro with any windows version. if gr level 3 and gr level 2ae were written for apple, i would have the ultimate chase laptop.

You'd consider buying a brand new laptop instead of just dual booting or running a VM? I'd say you're just limiting yourself for no good reason. If it's important to the chase - you make it happen. Everything else is fluff.

 

[Zac Flamig]

i would love to see gr level 3 and gr level 2 ae written for apple products such as the macbook air or pro. then i wouldnt have to consider buying a newer windows laptop...which i really cannot stand windows products and refuse to dual boot my macbook pro with any windows version. if gr level 3 and gr level 2ae were written for apple, i would have the ultimate chase laptop.

I hate to self promote, but you might check out my app WeatherWall for Mac. I am trying to add in as many useful features for this community as possible and as quickly as possible. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weatherwall/id839126619?ls=1&mt=12

 

[Brian Russell]

i will have to check that out when i go home, my imac is kinda the guinea pig for testing different programs