Placefile/ shapefile help

[JeremyS]

Hopefully I have put this in the right topic. Please feel free to move if this needs to be in equipment or elsewhere. I have GRLevel3 and have been using it for the better part of 7-8 years. I feel like I am missing out though on some of the options of this program, namely placefiles and shapefiles.
The only thing I currently have is a metar placefile which is actually going to be part of my question.
1) I have bought a 4k Toshiba Satellite laptop. I'm going to be honest, so far I'm not a fan of the 4k display. It's beautiful to look at but I have a lot of problems with font size etc on different programs. A lot of programs that I use now have extremely small font because of the 4k display. Even in GRLevel3, the storm icons and other font were extremely small until the most recent update. Now though the metar placefiles I use have basically unreadable font. I've been told that I have to go to the creator of the placefile to see if they are going to change their compatibility with 4k display. Does anyone know of a good site to go to where I could get a new metar placefile that would work with 4k display? Also I don't know which site I got the original metar placefile from, so what sites are out there that have placefiles and shapefiles?
2) What placefiles/shapefiles do you guys use with your GRLevel3 that enhances the program?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or help!

 

[Bob Schafer]

I'm not sure if this is the exactly right URL, but will likely work: http://www.grlevelx.com/owners

That will leave you with a lot of work to do, but if you want to get good at installing and using shapefiles and placefiles I think everything you need to know is in there. Are you using Allisonhouse? Yes? Do you know how to add placefiles that they provide? Go get the links from their website, copy, and add them. e.g. I use visible satellite, SN data, CWA boundaries, frontal postitions, and several others. (Not all at once)

As far as the 4K, I don't know, but I have two suggestions: either set your monitor size to a smaller setting (I know that's not a great option), or see what others may have said on the forum.

I have already been derided previously for doing the shapefiles this way, but I downloaded every shapefile, county by county, for every state in The Alley, from the US Census website, then installed them one-by-one for every radar site. It took many hours, but it works marvelously for me.

 

[JeremyS]

Thanks for the suggestion. I am registered for grlevelx.com already, but hadn't noticed the topics at the bottom for placefiles, etc. I'll go back through that info. I'm not using Allisonhouse. Is that a free site or membership needed? I'm not real tech savvy, so I might need help on how to get the placefiles added to my computer. Thanks again!

 

[Bob Schafer]

The basic Allisonhouse "Chaser" package subscription is $11.99/mo. It gets you access to a bunch of placefiles. I think the data feed is also supposed to be more reliable than the feed straight from the NWS (including the radar data itself), but I'm not an expert on this stuff, so don't rely on what I say.

Briefly, you get the code (address?) for a placefile on the Allisonhouse website, then copy. Make sure you are displaying the placefile manager in GRL, click the folder icon, and paste.

 

[JeremyS]

So I went to the WilmingtonWX site where they have some free placefiles. I was going to play around with some of those first. When I go to the METAR temperature plot placefile and click on the link, it gives me this:

Title: METAR Temperature Plot
IconFile: 1, 25, 25, 13, 13, "http://www.wilmingtonwx.com/images/metar_temperature.png"
Refresh: 5

So out of that text, what do I now paste into the placefile manager to get it to work?

Thanks again

 

[Robert Forry]

@JeremyS Interesting thread as I've wondered what 4K graphics will look like using a subscription service like Allison House (Bob mentioned them above) for my Level II and III data. The Storm Hunter service I use comes with placefiles for GR2/3 (I use GR3). I do use some of the colors pallets from the WilmingtonWX site you mention above and the RedTeam (http://www.redteamwx.com/grlevelx.html). Read Team also has free placefiles there.

I personally don't use the shapefiles for mapping out on the internet because I chase with a Surface Pro III and use a program called Maps Pro.

 

[Jeff Duda]

So I went to the WilmingtonWX site where they have some free placefiles. I was going to play around with some of those first. When I go to the METAR temperature plot placefile and click on the link, it gives me this:

Title: METAR Temperature Plot
IconFile: 1, 25, 25, 13, 13, "http://www.wilmingtonwx.com/images/metar_temperature.png"
Refresh: 5

So out of that text, what do I now paste into the placefile manager to get it to work?

Thanks again

The important part of a dynamic placefile like that one is the link address. Copy it into the Placefile Manager by clicking the "open" icon and pasting it into the window that pops up.

What you pasted is the placefile code, which is what GRX uses to plot the placefile. However, what you posted would only give you a static placefile, meaning the information would never change. That's why you need to use the link address from the website you got the link from because they have a script running on their server that updates the placefile code every 5 minutes with new data.

 

[Bob Schafer]

To add to what Jeff said: I went to the Wilmington website and tried to figure out how to get a METAR placefile FROM THEM working. Failed. Then, I went to their forum, and then the tutorials, still trying to figure out what to do. Failed. Did anyone else notice that there don't seem to be any posts in the forum, and that there are no tutorials? This is all making me wonder if Wilmington is active at all. Does anyone use them at all?

I can certainly help you with using GRL3 with Allisonhouse, Jeremy, but we first need to know if you're willing to pay for a subscription.

 

[GPhillips]

To add to what Jeff said: I went to the Wilmington website and tried to figure out how to get a METAR placefile FROM THEM working. Failed. Then, I went to their forum, and then the tutorials, still trying to figure out what to do. Failed. Did anyone else notice that there don't seem to be any posts in the forum, and that there are no tutorials? This is all making me wonder if Wilmington is active at all. Does anyone use them at all?

I can certainly help you with using GRL3 with Allisonhouse, Jeremy, but we first need to know if you're willing to pay for a subscription.

Bob, You'd just place the URL in the Placefile Manager, so in the case you had for Metar temperatures, use this URL to paste. http://wilmingtonwx.com/METAR_Temperature_Plot.php

 

[Bob Schafer]

Bob, You'd just place the URL in the Placefile Manager, so in the case you had for Metar temperatures, use this URL to paste. http://wilmingtonwx.com/METAR_Temperature_Plot.php

I did that. It didn't work.

 

[GPhillips]

This is what I get when I load it.

 

[rdale]

WilmingtonWX is active on the GRX owner's forum. I'd give it a try there.

 

[Brandon Schmidt]

The nice thing about server logs is that you can track down relevant support threads like this wherever they may be by referrer (I'm the WilmingtonWx site owner). To address a few things:

1) The forum; I anticipated it being used more with how many people use my site but instead, it just became a target for spambots and it never really caught on...I'll probably be getting rid of it soon or at the very least switching the software I use.

2) The tutorials; I haven't added to that page yet because my placefile and model pages aren't yet complete, even with how much I've worked on them. I'll go ahead and put a 'currently in development' tag on that page to eliminate confusion.

3) The placefiles; there's been no outages recently, certainly not with the METAR placefiles. After you paste the link in the placefile manager, what happens? Does the entry display as a link, turn red, or what? Interestingly enough, I think I'll make a basic tutorial on how to setup my placefiles given this issue might be more common than I thought.

4) The best way to contact me is via email ([email protected]) but posting on the GRLevelX forum (in the Placefiles section) is also a good way to get in touch.

-Brandon

P.S. Also, to any users using 4K displays, I'd appreciate some screenshots of how my placefiles are displaying so I can make the proper icon changes to get them displaying properly.

 

[JeremyS]

The nice thing about server logs is that you can track down relevant support threads like this wherever they may be by referrer (I'm the WilmingtonWx site owner). To address a few things:

1) The forum; I anticipated it being used more with how many people use my site but instead, it just became a target for spambots and it never really caught on...I'll probably be getting rid of it soon or at the very least switching the software I use.

2) The tutorials; I haven't added to that page yet because my placefile and model pages aren't yet complete, even with how much I've worked on them. I'll go ahead and put a 'currently in development' tag on that page to eliminate confusion.

3) The placefiles; there's been no outages recently, certainly not with the METAR placefiles. After you paste the link in the placefile manager, what happens? Does the entry display as a link, turn red, or what? Interestingly enough, I think I'll make a basic tutorial on how to setup my placefiles given this issue might be more common than I thought.

4) The best way to contact me is via email ([email protected]) but posting on the GRLevelX forum (in the Placefiles section) is also a good way to get in touch.

-Brandon

P.S. Also, to any users using 4K displays, I'd appreciate some screenshots of how my placefiles are displaying so I can make the proper icon changes to get them displaying properly.

Hey guys- thanks for all the help. I've been out of town so haven't had a chance to try different things sooner. Brandon, I went to your site and copy and pasted the URL and it worked great. Here's is what the temp plot looks like on 4k. Not sure if this is the size of font you were looking to have on the radar display. It's a little small, but it is better than the other placefile I was using. That placefile though had current temp, dewpoint, and wind direction. Any plans on creating one of those instead of having individual ones?

Edit: I see what GPhillips posted and the font on his display is much bigger for the temp plots, so you can see how the 4k display is affecting things.

 

[JeremyS]

Here's a screen shot of what the placefiles look like for redteamwx.com site. It looks like they do have the full metars which I really like and currently use(not sure if this was the site I actually got my original one from). I have gone and added their placefile to my radar tonight and this is what I get. As you can see the 4k display really makes them unreadable.

 

[JeremyS]

To add to what Jeff said: I went to the Wilmington website and tried to figure out how to get a METAR placefile FROM THEM working. Failed. Then, I went to their forum, and then the tutorials, still trying to figure out what to do. Failed. Did anyone else notice that there don't seem to be any posts in the forum, and that there are no tutorials? This is all making me wonder if Wilmington is active at all. Does anyone use them at all?

I can certainly help you with using GRL3 with Allisonhouse, Jeremy, but we first need to know if you're willing to pay for a subscription.

I'd be willing to pay for the subscription. I would want to make sure that I'm not going to have the same font issues I am having now. Anyone know if the placefiles have been updated to work with 4k on Allisonhouse? I see they have a 7 day trial so I can check it out I guess before I commit to anything.

 

[Bob Schafer]

I'd be willing to pay for the subscription. I would want to make sure that I'm not going to have the same font issues I am having now. Anyone know if the placefiles have been updated to work with 4k on Allisonhouse? I see they have a 7 day trial so I can check it out I guess before I commit to anything.

I just logged into my Allisonhouse account and learned a little.

Once you have a subby and an online account set up, you log in, go to "My Account", then under Data Feeds click on Gibson Ridge. You will then have all the available placefiles listed. For METARS, click on "configure". Once there, you can set the font size. Mine is set at 11, but you would want something much larger than that for 4k. I don't know what would be the largest allowable setting. Also, the URL that needs to be entered into your GRL placefile manager to get it working is right at the top of that page with a "copy" button for your convenience.