IMAPP/CSPP Polar2Grid Version 2.1 Software Release

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kathys
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Joined: Tue Jun 22, 2010 4:51 pm

IMAPP/CSPP Polar2Grid Version 2.1 Software Release

Post by kathys »

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that a new Polar2Grid Version 2.1 software package release is available for the reprojection and gridding of polar orbiter data including VIIRS, MODIS and AVHRR instruments into a variety of output formats including:

- GeoTIFF files,
- Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) gridded files. AWIPS is the visualization and analysis tool used operationally by the US National Weather Service (NWS),
- Keyhole Markup language Zipped (KMZ) files,
- HDF5 files, and/or
- Binary files.

This is a joint release from both the NOAA Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP) and NASA International MODIS/AIRS Processing Package (IMAPP) in support of direct broadcast users.

Polar2Grid Version 2.1 includes a number of updates, including expanding the number of sensors, products and functionality supported.

A few of the Version 2.1 updates include:

· Support for both VIIRS Sensor Data Records (SDR) and VIIRS Level 1B files.
· Support for the AMSR-2 microwave instrument onboard the GCOM-W1 satellite.
· Support for CSPP NOAA/STAR Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MIRS) products.
· Added the capability to overlay borders, coastlines and grids to a Polar2Grid GeoTIFF file (add_coastlines.sh script).
· Added the capability to add a color table to a Polar2Grid GeoTIFF file (add_colormap.sh script).
· Added the ability to output float GeoTIFFs.
· Improved Polar2Grid documentation. We have worked very had on reformatting the documentation to make it easier to read and navigate.

In addition, Please Note that the original Polar2Grid bash shell script executions <reader><writer>.bash are being phased out and replaced by a more general script implementation: polar2grid.sh <reader> <writer> . In the future, only the latter implementation will be supported.

Polar2grid Software Features

- The software is modular, robust and efficient.
- Creates standardized output GeoTIFF files. Image default projection is the WGS 84/Platte Carrée coordinate system (Google Earth).
- Execution takes place using simple bash scripts wrapping python; users specify a directory containing the input files, or the files themselves.
- True color and False color reprojections can be created using a single command.
- Software uses high spatial resolution bands for sharpening true color and false color images.
- Accepts proj4 grid definition parameters.
- Users can define their own grids. A grid definition helper script is included with the package.

This open source software is developed by a team at the University of Wisconsin, led by David Hoese.

This software package is supported on 64 bit Intel Linux platforms. Source code, binaries, execution scripts and documentation are included at the CSPP and IMAPP websites:

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/cspp/

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/imapp/

Cheers,

Kathy Strabala and David Hoese
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