Suomi NPP Chooser - 1.6

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Suomi NPP Chooser - 1.6

Post by mug_admin »

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 1.5, there have been several developments with the chooser:
  1. Single banded granules can be aggregated into one data source, assuming they share the same geolocation file. For example, if a user has:

    * SVI01_npp_d20140823_t1655516_e1657158_b14617_c20140824022440055002_noaa_ops.h5
    * SVI02_npp_d20140823_t1655516_e1657158_b14617_c20140824022440857642_noaa_ops.h5
    * SVI03_npp_d20140823_t1655516_e1657158_b14617_c20140824022100014228_noaa_ops.h5
    * GITCO_npp_d20140823_t1655516_e1657158_b14617_c20140824020337705117_noaa_ops.h5

    … Shift+click may be used to select the SVI01, SVI02, and SVI03 granules, and once Add Source is selected, all of the fields from the three bands will be consolidated into one Data Source. SVM granules that share geolocation can be merged the same way as SVI. EDR granules that share geolocation can also be merged.
  2. The RGB formula from the VIIRS Formulas plugin now works with single-banded granules. Note that there were modifications made to the VIIRS Formulas plugin from 1.4. If the plugin was installed in the past, you must use the Plugin Manager (Tools > Plugins > Manage...) to uninstall it and then install the new Miscellaneous > VIIRS Formulas plugin. The first time an NPP granule is added in 1.5, a Plugin Compatibility Notice window will appear notifying you of this.
  3. To get a full resolution display from the VIIRS RGB formula, a region must now only be subsetted in the ‘Red’ field. This subsetted region will then be carried over to ‘Blue’ and ‘Green’. In the past, subsetting had to be done for all three colors to get a full resolution display.
  4. Added support for ATMS SDR data, including ATMS remapped to CrIS SDR data. To display the Brightness Temperature field of this data, use the MultiSpectral display type, where the channel used for the display can be set through the Layer Controls.
  5. Added support for Terrain-Corrected Day/Night band data.
  6. Added display units for many fields. This also allows for the display unit to be changed in the Layer Controls.
  7. Improved subsetting capabilities to make it easier to select a full granule. In the past, if the subsetting bounding box extended out beyond the edge of the data, there would be an error. Now, the subsetting box can extend out slightly beyond the data.
  8. New Quality Flag (QF2) fields are now available in the Field Selector, including ‘Invalid_Input_Data’, ‘Bad_Pointing’, ‘Bad_Terrain’, and ‘Invalid_Solar_Angles’.
  9. Improved probe output for the Quality Flag (QF) fields. An example of this would be creating an Image Display of the VIIRS-LST-EDR_All/QF3_Surface_Type field of the VLSTO land surface temperature EDR. In McIDAS-V 1.5, probing the display will produce text output such as ‘Croplands’, whereas this would probe as ’13 [null]’ in version 1.4.

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 and Suomi NPP Chooser – 1.4 forum posts.

Thank you,
McIDAS User Services
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Re: Suomi NPP Chooser - 1.6

Post by mug_admin »

This thread lists the general information and instructions for using the Suomi NPP Chooser in the Under Development tree in the Data Sources tab of the Data Explorer. If you have questions or comments that you would like to post, please start new thread in the General Questions, Feature Requests, Bug Reports, or Scripting forums. Thank you.

With the release of McIDAS-V 1.6, there are a few developments with the chooser:
  1. Added initial support for NASA VIIRS L1b formatted files. These files can be added individually or aggregated together into one data source.
  2. Added support for geographically subsetting SDR and EDR granules across missing scanlines.
  3. Added two new scripting functions. listVIIRSFieldsInFilename() returns a list of fields contained within the file passed through the function. These field names can then be passed through the loadVIIRSImage() function to load the data. listVIIRSTimesInField() returns the beginning date and time of a field within a specified file passed through the function.

See the previous post for general information on using the Suomi NPP chooser, as well as significant changes with the chooser in previous releases of McIDAS-V.

Thank you,
McIDAS User Services
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