This page should be considered a draft.
This page discusses requirements for a suite of software that will be used to analyze radar data. Typically these are the processing steps:
- Translation
- QC and Editing
- Gridding
- Analysis
Each one of this steps may use one or more programs and data formats to accomplish thier tasks. A goal of new development will be provide an easier more flexible system of software then what currently exists.
Translation
When radar data is collected it is many times stored in a file format specific to that radar. A translation to a common data format is usually required.
Current software tools: xltrsii and sweep_trans.
QC and Editing
This step covers a wide variety of procedures and processing. It includes:
- Removal of ground clutter.
- Unwrapping velocity data.
- Calibration
Current software tools: ppi, solloii and parts of reorder.
Gridding
Gridding is the process of converting the radar data collected in spherical coordinate system to a three dimension rectangular coordinate system. There is probably no best way to grid radar data so there exist a number of algorithms. Another complication is that algorithms vary based on the platform the radar is on (stationary vs. airborne).
Current software tools: reorder and sprint.
Analysis
The gridded data is processed to produced products such as 3 dimensional wind and convergence fields. These fields along with the original gridded data are analyzed with visualization tools.
Current software tools: cedric and cidd.