October 2019 - March 2020
Yuan Ho, Julien Chastang
We have no questions at this time.
IDV 5.7 has been released on February 5 of 2020.
__Latest netCDF-Java Version__
The version of the netCDF-Java library currently distributed with the latest stable IDV version (5.6) is the 4.6.15-SNAPSHOT . The prior version of netCDF-Java to be distributed with the IDV was 4.6.12. There have been many improvements and bug fixes in that range. The complete release notes for these versions can be found here.
__IDV Certificates__
Java Webstart, Windows app and MacOS certificates have been renewed and will be valid until at least May 30, 2020 (MacOS certificate is valid until 2024). Moreover, as properly signing the IDV under these different environments can be an involved process, this information has thoroughly documented here.
__Color Table__
New enhanced color tables have been added in this version, including AWIPS color tables and Satellite products customized color tables.
__ NWS Hazard Warning__
NWS Tornado, Severe Thunderstorm, Flash Flood and Special Marine Warning KML files were supported in this release. A new menu item has been added to access the official NWS Warnings site directly under Data > Special data list.
__CDM Profile data type__
Common Data Model profile feature data is a set of data points along a vertical line, including a collection of a time series of profile features at named locations. CDM Profile data can be loaded in the Data Choosers: RAOB > Soundings Local.
__ABI and AHI Formulas__
Added a series of formulas specific to ABI (Advanced Baseline Imager), AHI (Advanced Himawari Imager) and MSG (Meteosat-8 through 11)to create displays of RGB and band subtraction products. These formulas can be found in the Field Selector under Formulas > Satellite. Also, derived fields for these products will be automatically added to the Field Selector when the multi bands ABI data source is loaded that includes bands required to create the product.
__Grid Diagnostics Formulas__
Added a variety of formulas specific to gridded datasource to calculate Saturation Equivalent Potential Temperature, Heat Index, Helicity, Ellrod Index, LP Index, and Richardson number.
__Latest Version of VisAD__
The SSEC team at UW, Madison has made a number of improvements to support 3D trajectories.
In collaboration with University of Miami Professor Brian Mapes, the project facilitates the use of data visualizations within curated, executable notebook documents, in the service of improving statistical algorithms for the datarich geosciences. The project integrates Jupyter Notebooks as the medium for literate computing and documentation; Unidata's IDV for its powerful data integration, visualization, and algorithm design capabilities; and RAMADDA as a metadata-rich repository for the packages that are the objects of this workflows.
Synoptic–Dynamic Meteorology in 3D: Introducing an IDV-Based Lab Manual by Gary Lackmann, B. Mapes and K. Tyle
A Google Scholar Search reveals a number of publications that cite use of the IDV (doi:10.5065/D6RN35XM).
__2019 AGU Fall Meeting__
__2019/2020 IDV lectures at WRF tutorial workshop__
__NetCDF Java 5.0.0 integration__
The new version of netCDF-Java will be integrated with the IDV. There have been many improvements and bug fixes in this new netCDF java library.
__Investigation of Java 3D Alternative__
Because of concerns about the long-term viability of the open-source Java 3D project, the IDV team has begun discussions with our University of Wisconsin, SSEC collaborators to replace Java 3D with a more viable alternative within the VisAD API. We have started investigating whether the Ardor 3D can meet that objective. Looking into alternatives to Java 3D was also a goal described in the Unidata 2018 Five-year plan.
We plan to finally migrate away from Oracle Java 8u51 and towards a more modern version of OPenJDK Java. This switch will necessitate altering the IDV building and distribution workflow to work with OpenJDK.
__E-Support__
The IDV team continues to provide the geoscience community with high-quality support through e-support software and idv-users mail list. In the last half year the IDV team has closed ~20 e-support tickets. Each individual ticket may and often does involve many back-and-forth messages. There is an especially large number of support requests coming from international users.
Top ten universities running IDV are: Millersville, Oklahoma, University of Utah, St Cloud state, Plymouth, NC State, West Kentucky, Lyndon State, University of Illinois, and San Francisco State.
__GitHub Pull Requests__
In the area of greater collaborative development, since the migration of the IDV project to github, we have closed a total of 125 “pull requests” or code contributions from internal and external collaborators.
__Youtube IDV Instructional Videos__
In the area of online IDV training, the Youtube IDV instructional videos have been viewed thousands of times.
We support the following goals described in Unidata Strategic Plan:
Prepared March 2020