New SPC mesoanalysis graphics

[Scott Taylor]

I'll chime in also with thanks to you and SPC Rich... looks and works great.

 

[Wes Carter]

Wow! You know, I'm one of the biggest critics of how our federal government spends our money but you guys seem to get a lot more bang for the buck than 95% of the federal agencies out there. This new Mesoscale Analysis tool will be a great tool for everyone.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Well done, Rich! Really a good job.

 

[Rodney Price]

Wow...nicely done guys. I really like the fixed views. Thanks as always!

 

[Brian Stertz]

Big grin on the looks of this newest SPC graphics...hats off to Rich for sending this over. Like what I see....now we just need some good values on the graphics this spring

 

[Greg McLaughlin]

Very impressive. I am excited about using this product this coming spring. The tornadoes don't stand a chance. We will find them!

 

[Willoughby Owen]

Totally world-class stuff, SPC! Loving the upgrade with underlays and nice to see you've lost that awful Java setup when rolling loops.

Agree on the bang for buck of the SPC/NWS.

 

[Tony Perkins]

This is great. It would be so easy to make GRLevel3 placefiles for these sectors and their images. I guess I know how I'll be spending the next day or two!

Edit: Poo... forgot that GRL3 can't use gif's. Oh well.

 

[Joel Wright]

As others have said, fantastic job! Definitely an impressive improvement. Can't wait to put them into use over the next several months.

 

[Skip Talbot]

This is great. It would be so easy to make GRLevel3 placefiles for these sectors and their images. I guess I know how I'll be spending the next day or two!

Edit: Poo... forgot that GRL3 can't use gif's. Oh well.

How about a PHP script that outputs the mesoanaysis images to a format that GrLevel3 can use? While you are using PHP you could also strip off the white background and any other colors that aren't part of the parameter's plot and make them transparent. The only other issue I see might be converting the mesoanalysis map projections to GrLevel3's. If they are same great, otherwise the math might get a little tricky.

 

[Tony Perkins]

Skip, the problem there is that you are hosting the converted files yourself. I may still do it for personal use, but I'm more motivated if I'm able to share it. I used to host satellite placefiles and the bandwidth usage got a little too high. Fortunately, I later found ones already in JPG from the ADDS site that could be downloaded directly with no hosting requirement.

 

[Rodney Price]

No problem

Tony,

Something as simple as ImageMagick can easily convert the .gif files to .png or .jpg (that GRLevel3/GR2Analyst can use). Then it's just a matter of taking the image, figuring out the lat/lon of the corners/triangles to make it fit properly on the map. I've tackled something similar using the older, national images. See my blog at

http://grlevel3geek.blogspot.com/2008/09/poor-mans-mesoanalysis-for-grlevel3.html.

It looks like I'll have to update the scripts soon!

 

[Tony Perkins]

Sorry for the threadjack...

Rodney nice placefiles. I've done the same thing with satellite images with a bit more coordinate detail, for which I have a tutorial here. I see your point of having each user install the scripts and necessary utilities on their laptop. While that works, I'd like to have a image hosted option too that makes it easy for anyone to use it without any additional utils or configuration.

 

[Buddy W Bradley]

Kudo's go out to Rich and SPC! This is the most exciting change I have seen at the SPC website in quite some time. The tools are very user friendly as even I could navigate thru them. LOL Again, GREAT JOB GUYS!
I am looking forward to using them first hand myself

 

[Rob H]

To echo the others: fantastic work on this new page. Very easy to use and it will likely make a few of my bookmarks in my browser obsolete.