Introducing the "Archived GRIB Routing"

The idea here is like replacing the pilot charts with some GRIBs stored in some composites you have already archived, to plan a trip for example.
At sea, the GRIBs you will download will provide a reliable forecast for about 3 days. After that, it's more like science fiction...
By looking into your archived composites, you can have a look at the weather that actually happened.
This brings us back to the importance of naming conventions, mentioned in the User's Manual.

Here is a quick step-by-step introduction to the feature.

Click on the images to see them in full size, easier to read.

Open the Weather Wizard as usual, without loading any data.

Re-locate the chart to the desired area, if needed.

Next, plot the start and arrival points. Let's try here to go from the SF Bay Area to the Christmas Island, in the Kiribati Republic.

Next, go to the menu Tools > Routing > Routing from Archived GRIBs

You will be prompted to choose the directory containing the composites containing the GRIBs you are interested in, and the Regular Expression filtering them. Just in case you forgot, ".*" will select everything (no filter).

The application will tell you how many composites your selection will return, they will be used to build one single BIG GRIB document that will be used to compute the routing.

One important thing to be careful with: By default, the application suggests you to start the routing at the current time and date. As you can see on the dialog, the GRIB start and end dates do not contain the current date. You need to change the date you want to start the routing from, so it is within the GRIB date range.

Now, the routing start date is within the GRIB's range.

From now on, the process is the usual routing one. Except that the GRIB will probably not expire.

You can tell by the color of the isochrones that the GRIB did indeed not expire.

Note: Once the big GRIB has been generated, it is loaded in the application, just like if it had been downloaded from the net, or read from the disc. You can re-launch a routing computation without having to re-generate it, until you close the tab it lives in.

This feature is still in development, it will be available very soon.
Hope you will lilke it!

SPOT Parser in the Console

We already had one Web version of a SPOT Parser, we now have one embedded in the Navigation Console. It allows the manipulation of the SPOT bulletins even if you are far from the Internet...

It also comes with a possibility to compose your own SPOT request.
At sea, you would compose your request (possibly with the data from the GPS), paste it into your Airmail client to send it through SailMail.
Once the response is in your inbox, you paste it in the utility featured above, and you have a graphical rendering of the SPOT data.
Enjoy!

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.

Spot GRIB Request

saildocs provides support for the Spot GRIB requests. Spot requests returns forecasts for a given location. Let's say you just dropped the hook, and you want to know what your night is going to look like...
If you send an email to query@saildocs.com, with a body like this:

 send spot:37.5N,122.5W|5,3|PRMSL,WIND,RAIN

, you will receive a response like that one:

Data extracted from file gfs130704-12z.grb dated 2013/07/04 16:52:56
request code: spot:37.5N,122.5W|5,3|PRMSL,WIND,RAIN

Forecast for 37°30N 122°30W (see notes below)
Date  Time  PRESS  WIND DIR RAIN
        utc    hPa  kts deg mm/h
----------- ------ ----- --- ----
07-05 00:00 1005.7  9.8 288  0.0
07-05 03:00 1005.7  11.5 297  0.0
07-05 06:00 1006.8  12.9 302  0.0
07-05 09:00 1006.7  13.0 303  0.0
07-05 12:00 1006.7  12.6 303  0.0
07-05 15:00 1007.0  11.7 299  0.0
07-05 18:00 1007.7  10.3 280  0.0
07-05 21:00 1007.2  11.4 270  0.0
... etc

This is "human readable", as they call it, but not that catchy, hey?
The cool thing is that this content can be parsed, using basic regular expressions.
If you drop the content of the request's response in the box below, you will have a chance to render it visually.
See in full
The browser you use must support HTML5 for that.

Custom Micro Pattern

The micro patterns rely on two main features:

• A background
• GRIB Smoothing

The GRIB Smoothing is not a problem, and the value it can take are now available in the pattern editor.
The problem can come from the backgrounds. Up to now, they refer to an image, part of a jar, accessed through a getResource() method.
In order for the user to be able to come up with his own patterns, there is now "protocol" for the background.

Click the image to enlarge it. Notice in the fax URL (a background is just a non-transparent fax), it begins with ext-resource://.
Whatever is after that is the URL of the image you want to set as a background. In this case, it is picked up in the resources directory. But it can come from the web as well, it just has to begin with http://...
Notice beside the "Projection" drop down list, you now also have the possibility not to display the chart contour.
The GRIB smoothing parameters we talked about before are the 2 last parameters at the bottom of the dialog displayed above.

Micro Patterns

Combining the chart backgrounds and the GRIB smoothing, we can come up with a local pattern, which can actually make some sense, specially for local conditions (wind and kite surfers might be interested).

The image above is the display of the following request:

  GFS:42N,32N,128W,116W|1,1|0,3..168|PRMSL,WIND,HGT500

It is displayed with a GRIB 2D smoothing of 6 (cells are 10x10 nm) and a time smoothing of 3 (one frame every hour). The total time is one week, that makes 168 frames.
At the entrance of the San Francisco Bay, the wind goes from WSW on Wednesday at 06:00 UTC, to South and 12:00 UTC, to North on Friday at 00:00 UTC. Interesting...
This feature - and the associated background - will be available soon, in the next patch version of the software.

User Manual available

There is a User Manual for the Weather Wizard available at lulu.com.

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.

Routing Slicing

Just like we had a GRIB Slicing feature, you can now visualize the conditions at the routing level.

Drag the mouse on the top pane, and that tells you where you are on the chart, with a big red dot.

Beside that, it was so windy today in Oyster Point that the wind blew my glasses off my nose... I just could see them sinking 30 feet away from the dock. Rats!

Contour detection

I just finished big improvements in the contour detection of the GRIBs. The performances are now correct (a few milliseconds per GRIB layer, for a full Pacific GRIB 2 degrees by 2 degrees).
Now the contour detection can be part of a GRIB Animation.
In addition, there are now new check boxes to show and hide already computed contour lines, just like for the faxes.
The picture shows PRMSL and 500HGT contours detected in a South Pacific GRIB. Notice that there is now an option to show only the detected contours (with no wind or other GRIB data).

Archives 2009 available

From this page, you can now reach several kinds of archives, along with real-time data. We had in the past the composites archives - which can be opened and rendered by the Weather Wizard - we now have images generated after the composites, they can be visualized from your browser.

Check out this link for details.

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.

3rd dimension for GRIB smoothing

We already had the surface (2D) smoothing, we now have a time smoothing for the GRIB data.
That means that you can get a better resolution for the GRIB cell (divide the cells, and set the values based on the ones of the cells around), the same is now available for time.
You download a 2 degrees by 2 degrees GRIB, for 3 days, every 24 hours, you can very well render a GRIB of 1 degree by 1 degree (or less), every 1 hour. And it works pretty well (offshore, of course, local coastal phenomenons, like the one shown here, cannot be taken care of by a GRIB).
In addition, some performance issues have been fixed, impacting the GRIB animation. With the previously described feature, we can now generate an animation that shows a frame every hour.
That will definitely minimize the demand on the SSB, when downloading the data at sea.
For example, you download a GRIB file for a given area, with cells 2° × 2°, with a frame every 24 hours. With the smoothing, you can easily display it with a 1° × 1° resolution (or less, your call), and with a frame every 1 hour. The equivalent GRIB would be 2×2×24 times bigger, that it 96 times bigger. That does not sound that great, but you can put it another way: instead of 1 minute to download it, it will take more that 1 and half hour. Sounds more convincing like that!
In addition, the dustlets take advantage of the same feature, you can watch really smooth animations.

Example:

A Composite has been displayed
Hide the faxes and place labels
Change the wind display to colors
Play animation, it's anything but smooth


Set a (2D) smoothing factor of 3
Looks better for each frame
Play animation, it's still not ideal


Now, set the time smoothing factor so it generates a frame every one hour
Play animation, it's now much better, perturbations evolution becomes way clearer.
Vancouver is going to be windy and wet again ;)

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.

New feature: Load composite from the web

You can now load an archived composite from the web, in the Weather Wizard.
There are archived composites at http://donpedro.lediouris.net/weather/waz/, and they can be accessed directly. Go to File > Load Composite from the web.
There was a lot of activity in the tropical zone during the past weeks, hurricanes, typhoons, tropical waves, depressions and storms. They can be visualized this way, in case you did not follow those phenomenons on a daily base.

Routing Computation Improvement

Found - and fixed - an important performance bug in the routing computation.
That one appeared when a restriction like "Avoid TWS above XX" or "Avoid TWA below YY" was set.
It now behaves like the computation that has no restriction, which is good!
Update is available at its usual place, or through the automatic update mechanism.
Enjoy!

User Exit

Rendering of faxes and GRIB data seems to be an endless topic..., the soft this blog is about provides some options, but there is way more to do.

That's why we came up with this user-exit feature, that allows anyone who knows a bit of Java to do whatever he wants, with the faxes - reworked or not (color and transparency) - and the GRIB data. This creates an entry in the popup menu of the chart panel, which you can select to trigger external code. The only restriction is to implement a given Java Interface, and you can access the context of the chart panel. 

Above is an example of such a user-exit, smoothing and animating the GRIB data currently displayed in the chart pane. 500mb charts look a bit like a big slug drooling across the ocean...

We will soon post on the site a repository of such user exits (along with explanations about the way to write yours), the possibilities are endless.

The rendering provided by Processing is gorgious, I still need to look into it, for now I'm struggling with thread issues. They manage their own pool apparently, and I need to somehow sneak in... We'll see. 

The video above is a preview of the animated GRIB slug. It's smaller than the real one, but the picture on top will give you an idea of the actual size.

Introducing GRIB Slicing

We now have the possibility on rendered GRIB file to draw a line. A graph will then show up, representing the values along the line of the different data contained in the GRIB. 

If the mouse is held clicked on the graph, then a red dot is displayed on the map (and on the line of course), showing where the point is geographically. It becomes easy to see where the wind is the strongest, the pressure the highest, the temperature the warmest, the precipitations the heaviest, etc.

This feature is available immediatly.

New 3D rendering for the GRIBs

We can now have a better 3D rendering for the GRIB data.
The thing is to be able to stack whatever data is available in the GRIB on top of another one, along with the chart.
The check boxes at the bottom of the panel do the job, they're activated when the data they describe are available. Stacking waves and Pressure at Mean Sea Level for example, unsurprisingly shows that the waves are bigger where the pressure is low.
To manipulate this kind of image, just imagine it is in a glass ball. And then rotate it just like if you where using a track ball... The mouse moves the image just like your hand or thumb at the surface of the ball.

Processing

I'm currently in the process of reworking the weather software using the framework provided by Processing.org.
The first components to benefit of such a re-writing will be the GRIB 3D representations. The first tests are very encouraging, and the rest should follow.

Keep posted!