Weather on WorldWind

You know, this is all great.

However - to make this available to the every-day user we need a couple things. This all needs to be terribly easy.

I, for one, don't have the time to download an XML file and import it every time I want to check the weather.

1.) A Weather Plug-In for WorldWind
2.) Allow for multiple layers / sources of Weather servers
3.) Update/Refresh Settings for each server so real-time data can be obtained
4.) Publish a simple list of Weather servers where people can help add more sources. Ie:

If you look at WeatherBonk.com, they have many sources of weather data. Let's somehow tap into those personal weather stations, as well as official weather data servers.

This is a great discussion. Hope this gives some positive direction for the energies & expertise produced here.

Ryan D. Hatch

[5of0]

Originally posted by Ryan D. Hatch@Aug 26 2005, 09:40 AM
You know, this is all great.

However - to make this available to the every-day user we need a couple things. This all needs to be terribly easy.

I, for one, don't have the time to download an XML file and import it every time I want to check the weather.

1.) A Weather Plug-In for WorldWind
2.) Allow for multiple layers / sources of Weather servers
3.) Update/Refresh Settings for each server so real-time data can be obtained
4.) Publish a simple list of Weather servers where people can help add more sources. Ie:

If you look at WeatherBonk.com, they have many sources of weather data. Let's somehow tap into those personal weather stations, as well as official weather data servers.

This is a great discussion. Hope this gives some positive direction for the energies & expertise produced here.

Ryan D. Hatch

Quoted post

You don't have to download the layer everytime, just refresh the area with F5. There are multiple layers/sources avaliable. #3 is possible, there is a list of lots of possibilities, just simple editing is required.

[WWG]

Unfortunately there is not much room for pics on this topic but take a look at the pressure isobars for Katrina using Weather2.xml. Realizing that wind speed is a function of the spacing of equal pressure isobars, this is an astounding picture of a deadly storm. Add the Conus_IR and look at that perfectly formed eye. Putting the two together highlights the fact that the two data feeds are not in time sync.

Unfortunately, the hurricane track feed is off tonight and neither the weather2.xml rader data nor the NEXRAD.xml radar data reaches that far out into the Gulf of Mexico to fully capture the storm. The data feed for weather2.xml comes from a commercial source while the data for NEXRAD.xml comes from the University of Iowa. Does anyone know if NOAA is going to start providing weather data in WW compatible format?

[MangoCrate]

Originally posted by 5of0@Aug 26 2005, 08:22 PM
You don't have to download the layer everytime, just refresh the area with F5. There are multiple layers/sources avaliable. #3 is possible, there is a list of lots of possibilities, just simple editing is required.

Quoted post

Put the line below is a .bat file and run it before you start WW - maybe even include it in your shortcut line. F5 is OK, but it only reloads the tiles in the current view extent - shift around and you'll get old data.

del /s /q "C:\Program Files\NASA\World Wind 1.3\Cache\Earth\Weather"

I think the developers are working on implementing the "CacheExpirationTime" flag in the XML. This would allow the user or creator of the add-on to control how long - if at all - the cache will be used before redownloading.

I just found this program and started playing with the scripting, but have a question for you vetren scripters.

How does WW generate terrain maps? Is the base file a grayscale image and the 3d renderer interprets dark as low and light as high?

What I'm going after is a plug in along the lines of the weather plug in that will interpret IR satellite data into 3D. It would make severe weather events amazing. I don't believe it could be done making a seperate sphere for the cloud deck, so main terrain could be preserved. (aka clouds above the earth so you could get between the 2, but it still would be impressive. The same 3D effect would be awesome height contures on isobaric charts. Make it possible to actually see a 500mb trough. I imagine this would require a bit of preprocessing tho.

I'm not sure what format you need the data in, but NOAA has some public servers where you can get all the weather data you would ever need. Just not sure if the format is correct

[DaoudaW]

I installed the above weather plug-in a couple of months ago and its been great, but recently whenever I try to use it I get a server error.

What's up?

[m_k]

Originally posted by DaoudaW@Sep 24 2005, 10:15 PM
What's up?

Quoted post

Don't know... :unsure:
Everything works here
Could you try again (with ctrl-h window open)?

[Dan100]

Using 1.3.2, is the data amazingly slow to download for anyone else? :-)

[KBub]

What java file is being used to open the xml's?? Is it one from the examples package? I have the 'image' and weather.xml files, but what do I do with them? The instructions aren't quite clear.