Introducing the Headless Weather Wizard

Two things:

• The Weather Wizard runs on a Raspberry PI
• It can load (and save) a default composite, and reload it on a regular base

The idea is to run the Weather Wizard in some sort of batch mode, so it generates and stores composites on its file system, as long as you let it go.
You just need to run it this way:
On Windows:

set MEM_OPTIONS=-XX:NewSize=512m -XX:MaxNewSize=512m -Xmn768m -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m 
set MEM_OPTIONS=%MEM_OPTIONS% -XX:SurvivorRatio=1 -XX:PermSize=30m -XX:+UseParallelGC
set JAVA_OPTIONS=%EXTRA_JVM_PRM% %MEM_OPTIONS% %JAVA_OPTIONS% 
::
set PRMS=-composite:./patterns/01.Favorites/01.3.00.Pacific.Sfc.500.Tropic.GRIB.ptrn
set PRMS=%PRMS% -interval:360 
set PRMS=%PRMS% "-pattern:/yyyy/MM-MMM | Auto_ | yyyy_MM_dd_HH_mm_ss_z | waz"
::
set command=java %JAVA_OPTIONS% -client -classpath "%CP%" -Dheadless=true main.splash.Splasher %PRMS%
start "Headless Weather Wizard" %command%
  

On Linux:

MEM_OPTIONS=-XX:NewSize=512m -XX:MaxNewSize=512m -Xmn768m -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m 
MEM_OPTIONS=$MEM_OPTIONS -XX:SurvivorRatio=1 -XX:PermSize=30m -XX:+UseParallelGC
JAVA_OPTIONS=$EXTRA_JVM_PRM $MEM_OPTIONS $JAVA_OPTIONS
#
PRM1=-composite:./patterns/01.Favorites/01.3.00.Pacific.Sfc.500.Tropic.GRIB.ptrn
PRM2=-interval:360 
PRM3="-pattern:/yyyy/MM-MMM | Auto_ | yyyy_MM_dd_HH_mm_ss_z | waz"
#
java $JAVA_OPTIONS -client -classpath "$CP" -Dheadless=true main.splash.Splasher $PRM1 $PRM2 "$PRM3" &
  

Notice the parameters -composite:, -interval:, and -pattern:. Same for the System variable -Dheadless=true.
This means that the pattern mentioned in -composite: will be reloaded every 360 minutes, and stored as stated in the -pattern: parameter.

New display option for faxes

There is a new display option for the faxes.
We used to have check boxes on the right side of the chart panel, to hide or show the various data (charts, faxes, GRIB file, etc).
We now have the possibility to have radio buttons (instead of the check boxes) for the faxes. A right click on the check box panel will prompt you for the option.
That allows you to scroll through the faxes one by one. One fax would be displayed at a time. That would be specially useful when a composite is targeted to display faxes of the same zone, for current time, 24h forecast, 48h forecast, 96h forecast, etc.

Fax crawler, for SailMail users

I wanted to get something more dynamic for the patterns that can be used at sea...

When ashore, no problem, the faxes are pulled out from the Internet.

At sea, that's different, you have GetFax (from SailMail) downloading the faxes from the SSB onto your hard drive, and when it's about putting the faxes together in a composite, that used to be a painful experience, you had to locate the faxes one by one... Baaaaad.

There is now a new kind of dynamic pattern. If the protocol used to get the fax(es) is not http, then there is a surprise. There is a "search:" protocol implemented like in:

search:chartview.util.SearchUtil.findMostRecentFax(".*500.*", "${fax.path}")

That allows the soft to crawl the directory where the faxes are downloaded.

It does not look that friendly, but that is quite powerful, and extendable. After the "search:" keyword is the name of the Java class and method used to find the right fax. That method must be static, take two String parameters, and return a String value, that's all. The first parameter is a regular expression to match the description of the fax to find. SailMail appropriately stores this information when a fax is downloaded through GetFax... The second parameter is the root directory to start the search from, to find the most recent, matching the regular expression pattern. In the example above, it is the value of the path stored in the Weather Wizard preferences.

It is extendable in the sense that you can write your own crawlers, in Java. It just needs to be put in the classpath.

The same kind of syntax and method is available for the GRIBs as well.

search:chartview.util.SearchUtil.findMostRecentFile(".*\.(grb|grib)$", "${grib.path}")

The idea when at sea is to have GetFax running in "auto" mode for a while, and then to use this kind of composite pattern in the Weather Wizard. This way, this rendering is just one - I said "one" - click away:

Even fuzzy faxes make sense. Click the image... Cool!

To learn how to use this feature the best way, just Google "Regular Expression", this is soooooooooooo kewl!

Color Faxes

We can now integrate color faxes, like this one.
It is a bit special in the sense that

• It's a square projection (Anaximandre)
• It is in several colors.

Anaximandre never was a problem, but the multiple colors is something that was not managed.
We now have the possibility to just make a fax transparent, without changing the black to another color (which is a possibility that still remains).
Having the colored fax transparent allows as usual superimposition with other data, like GRIBs or charts.
We can produce a rendering like this:
Some improvements in the image processing have been done too, regarding the transparency, and the sharp and blur. Looks much nicer. I had the idea of doing it by looking at what OpenCPN was doing for their charts rendering, which is much nicer than Maptech, based on the same data files.

Externalizing the Look and Feel option

The possibility to apply a Swing Look and Feel on the UI has been externalized. You can apply any Look and Feel you want, its name will be mentioned in the command-line, or in the shortcut properties. That brings more flexibility to the user, and cuts the dependencies with the providers.
On the right is an example of what's possible, using the "Napkin" Look and Feel.
The default look and feel is the System one, not the Metal one (Java default).
Those who have already installed the program should re-install it, as some modifications in the launching script were made.

Transparent Tootip Window

There is now an option to display the data at the mouse in a transparent window of top of the chart, rather than using the regular tooltip bubble. The window can be moved within the chart boundaries just like any other window. It can also be resized, the font size follows the window's size.
There is also a new address to download the software, at http://weather.lediouris.net.

Weather Assistant Software almost ready to be released

The Weather Assistant software is coming good, almost ready to be released as version 0.9...
The documentation - at least a first drop of the user manual - is already available.
Find it here.
In conjunction with SailFax, this will really help to read all the data we are able to receive from the boat.