Suomi NPP Chooser - 1.4

New McIDAS-V features under development. Feedback is appreciated.
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bobc
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Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 5:57 pm

Suomi NPP Chooser - 1.4

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The ‘Imagery – Suomi NPP’ chooser is listed under the Under Development tree in the Data Sources tab in the Data Explorer. This chooser is designed to work with Suomi NPP (National Polar-orbiting Partnership) data from NOAA's CLASS and SSEC’s PEATE server.

With the release of McIDAS-V 1.4, there is now preliminary support for VIIRS EDR (Environmental Data Records) products. These products include fields such as cloud heights, pressures, fire/smoke detection, land/sea temperatures, and snow/ice cover.

General information about the Suomi NPP Chooser from the previous NPP Chooser forum post:
In order to use this chooser, you must have both the NPP data file and its associated geolocation data for each granule in the same directory. This may be in the form of two separate files, or the geolocation may be included in the same file as the data. Once you navigate to the directory where your files are stored in the Under Development>Imagery - Suomi NPP chooser, all NPP files with valid geolocation will be listed out in the Data Sources tab of the Data Explorer. You can select to add individual granules, or you can use Shift+click to select several consecutive granules that will be aggregated together into one image.

Once you are in the Field Selector, select your desired field and the Image Display display type. In the Region tab of the Field Selector, you will see a preview image of the display. If you wish to display your data in full resolution, you must subset a region in the Region tab using Shift+click. If you do not subset a region, the data will be displayed at a reduced resolution.

There are a couple formulas unique to this Suomi NPP data that can be added as a plugin through the Plugin Manager. In the Plugin Manager under the Miscellaneous tree, there is a plugin called VIIRS Formulas. Once you add this plugin and restart your session, there will be two new formulas listed out in the Field Selector. The swath-to-grid formula removes the bowtie deletion effect if you subset a region in the Field Selector when evaluating the formula. There is also a 3-Color RGB formula designed to work with this Suomi NPP data that will create an RGB image while removing the bowtie deletion at the same time. The recommended bands to use with this formula are SVM05, SVM04, and SVM03 to create a natural-color RGB, but any bands can be used.

There is also the ability to work with various VIIRS cloud mask data in McIDAS-V. If you add a file such as GMODO-IICMO*, there are various quality flags included with the data. McIDAS-V will see what quality flag fields are included with the data, and from these quality flags, McIDAS-V will provide a variety of cloud mask fields. In the Fields panel of the Field Selector, you may see various cloud mask fields such as ‘Cloud Phase’, ‘Volcanic Ash’, ‘Dust’, ‘Fire’, etc. This data can be displayed with the Image Display display type.

The saving of both zipped and unzipped bundles containing NPP data is supported. Note that zipped bundles may be very large dependent on the amount of data as well as the resolution of the data you are saving.

Please note that this chooser is still under development. We are in the process of integrating the ability to use different Suomi NPP products in McIDAS-V. Any feedback as far as enhancement ideas and bug reports are appreciated. Also note that more information about the Suomi NPP chooser, including updates specific for each McIDAS-V version can be found in the original NPP Chooser forum post.

- Bob Carp
McIDAS User Services
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