National Oceanographic Data Center Internal Report

OCEAN DATA EXPLORERSOFTWARE USER’S MANUAL Software Version 1.1

 

Silver Spring

December 2006

 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service

National Oceanographic Data Center

Marine Data Stewardship Division

For updates on the data, documentation and additional information about the ODE please refer to:

 

http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/IDARS/tools/ODE

 

About the User Guide

 

This document is the Software User Manual of the "Ocean Data Explorer" (ODE) software developed at the U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC). The purpose of this Software User Manual is to be the user's reference document for the operation of the ODE software.

 

Ocean Data Explorer, being not designed to adhere to the native look and feel of the various computer operating systems it is installed, can look consistent across all platforms. Java Swing applications often look and feel different than native applications. All examples in the first edition of the User Guide are taken from ODE version 1.1, and so it does not reflect that particular user interface style.

 

1.      General Information

 

1.1.            What is ODE?

 

The "Ocean Data Explorer" (ODE) is a software package that provides interactive graphical exploration and conversion of oceanographic vertical profile data stored on optical disc media. The main features of the ODE allow the user: (1) to explorer Argo profiling floats metadata and the waterfall plots of vertical profiles of the measured parameters, (2) to select and sub-set large in-situ data collections using spatial/temporal metadata, (3) to convert in-situ station profile data from the NODC NetCDF format to the ASCII text format, and (4) to decompress (un-zip) the tgz format files stored on compact-discs.

1.2.            Software License and Disclaimer

The ODE software is provided here to the public free of charge. In no event shall the U.S. Government, nor any agency or employee thereof, be liable for any direct or indirect consequential damages flowing from the use of the Software provided. The user assumes the entire risk associated with the results and performances of the data on this disc. All application programs are provided "as is" without warranty regarding their performance. NOAA cannot assume liability for any damages as a result of this software being used on any particular system. NOAA makes no warranty, expressed or implied, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty. Furthermore, NOAA's licensing agreement with the application software developers does not necessarily demonstrate an endorsement of their software.

 

1.3.            System Requirements

 

ODE was developed in Java, an object-oriented programming language. With very few changes to the source code, ODE can be run on any platform that has a Java Virtual Machine available. The platforms supported currently by ODE include Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, and XP, Mac OS 8-9.X, Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux, and other flavors of UNIX. The following paragraphs describe hardware and software requirements to run the ODE:

 

1.3.1.      Hardware Requirements

 

·        WINDOWS^TM

¸                   Intel Pentium processor

¸                   128 MB RAM minimum, 256 MB recommended.

¸                   100 MB available hard-drive space minimum

¸                   256-color video display adapter and monitor

¸                   CD/DVD-ROM Drives

·        MACINTOSH^TM

¸                   PowerPC processor

¸                   128 MB RAM minimum, 256 MB recommended.

¸                   256-color video display adapter and monitor

¸                   CD/DVD - ROM Drive  

·        UNIX^TM /LINIX^TM

¸                   128 MB RAM minimum, 256 MB recommended

¸                   100 MB available hard-drive space minimum

¸                   256-color video display adapter and monitor

¸                   CD/DVD - ROM Drive

 

1.3.2.      Software Requirements:

 

·      WINDOWS^TM: Microsoft Windows 9X/2000/NT/ME/XP

·      MACINTOSH^TM: OS 9.x or OS X10.1.3 or higher (OS X 10.2 recommended)

·      UNIX^TM: Solaris/Linux/BSD etc.

·      World Wide Web browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, for viewing .HTM files

·      Acrobat Reader® 5.0 for viewing .PDF files

·      JRE 1.4.2.x (or Java™ 2 SDK)

 

2.      Installing ODE

 

A Web installer of the ODE is available from the PRODS2006 Suite. The installation program copies the ODE software and sample files into a directory. The default directory is c:\Program Files\ODE_x_y, while x_y is the software version number; you can change the drive or directory name during the installation if you wish. The installation also creates a Windows Program Group called ODE_x_y.

 

3.      Main Window of the ODE

 

This tutorial provides an introduction of the basic use of the ODE to explore oceanographic data. The appearance of the ODE dialog boxes and windows is slightly different on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and UNIX computers because ODE uses the local appearance features of Java to better blend in with the user's computer. The examples shown in this tutorial were created on a Windows personal computer.

 

Figure 1 is a screenshot of the main window of the ODE. It illustrates the three components:

 

 

Figure 1 A screen shot of the Ocean Data Explorer (ODE) main window

1. Title Bar Component:

 

The version number of the ODE software is displayed on the title bar.

 

2. Menu Bar Component:

 

The menu bar component has three menu items: File, Tools, and Help.

1)      File Menu Item:

The File menu item has two sub menu items, open or exit ODE. Selection of the open menu will allow you to create a new configuration file or open an existing one, while the “exit ODE” menu will exit the ODE program.

Tools Menu Item:

The Tools menu item contains four application modules of the ODE:

i.      Argo Float Explorer (AFE): Explorer Argo profiling floats metadata and the waterfall plots of vertical profiles of the measured parameters..

  ii.      “SQForm”: Select and sub-set large in-situ data collections using spatial/temporal metadata .

iii.      “ncConverter”: Convert in-situ station profile data from the NODC NetCDF format to the ASCII text format

  iv.      “EzGTar”: Decompress (un-zip) the tgz format files stored on compact-discs

Help Menu Item:

The Help menu item allow you to display the system properties of your computer, the news announcement (what's new), the software license, and the brief description of the ODE.

 

4.      ODE Operations

 

4.1.            Running and Existing OD

 

When you run ODE, you will see the MAIN window (shown in Figure 1 above), as the opening screen. You are required to create a configuration file by clicking on the file menu from the menu bar and selecting open => new configuration file, if this is the first time you run ODE, otherwise, selecting open=>Existing configuration file.

 

Figure 2 illustrates on how to create/open a configuration file.

 

Figure 2 A screen shot showing how to open a new or existing configuration file.

 

Clicking on Exit ODE will allow you to exit ODE. A dialog window, shown in Figure 3, appears and accepts a confirmation of termination from you. You click on Yes to exit or No to return to the ODE main window.

 

 

 

4.2.            Preparation for Running ODE

The four ODE modules, AFE, SQForm, ncConverter, and EzGTar, are disabled right after the ODE is invoked. A configuration file is required to be created to enable the ODE modules. The ODE configuration file containing the basic information for the locations of the configuration file, working and source data directories, respectively. The default configuration file name is Untitled as shown in the first text area in Figure 4.

The default working and source data directories are located in the user home directory and the directory where the ODE software is installed. In the Windows operating system, they are your Documents and Settings and Program Files directories, respectively. It is strongly suggested not to modify the defaults for the first time users. The ODE has contain a subset of the Argo and Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Program (GTSPP) data and the Argo profiling float data for you to navigate/explore the software, Once you become familiar with the software, you can create a working directory (folder) on your hard disk area and you will save all output files in the work directory. A sub-directory of the directory, named data, is also required to be created for storing data files copied and decompressed from the PRODS disc, which can be ordered from the NODC..

 

 

5.      Running ODE Tools (Modules)

 

5.1.            Argo Float Explorer

 

To start up the Argo Float Explorer (AFE) program, you will:

 

 

You can select an Argo profiling float of your interest by clicking on the file menu from the menu bar, then selecting open => folder of the Argo float of your interest”, if you have a particular float that interested you, or selecting open=>file containing a list of active Argo floats, if you are interested in active floats only, otherwise, selecting open=>file containing a list of inactive Argo floats, if you are interested in inactive floats.

 

5.2.            SQForm (Station Query Form)

Step 1.	Bring the SQForm up from	Figure 12
Figure 13
Step 2.		Figure 14 The Station Query Form
Figure 15
	Figure 16
	Figure 17
		Figure 18
		Figure 19
		Figure 20

 

5.3.            ncConverter

 

5.4.            EzJZip

 

 

6.      Notes on Specific Formats

6.1.            ASCII Text (Printer-oriented)

6.2.            ASCII Text (Line-oriented)

6.3.            ANSI Text

6.4.            JOS Text

Appendix

     This appendix lists the keywords used to represent file formats. You need these keywords when converting in the batch mode, or when specifying sections in customization files.

The definitions of ocean boundaries used to divide the data on the CD. Below the figure are tables giving the coordinates of the boundaries.

 

 

Arctic Ocean

Longitude band	Southern Latitude	Northern Latitude
0 E - 180 E	60 deg. N	90 deg. N
180 W – 0 E	60 deg. N	90 deg. N

 

 

N Atlantic Ocean

Longitude band	Southern Latitude	Northern Latitude
100 E - 020 E	31 deg. N	90 deg. N
020 E - 070 W	80 deg. S	90 deg. N
070 W - 084 W	09 deg. N	90 deg. N
084 W - 090 W	14 deg. N	90 deg. N
090 W - 100 W	18 deg. N	90 deg. N
100 W - 100 E	66 deg. N	90 deg. N

 

 

Pacific Ocean

Longitude band	Southern Latitude	Northern Latitude
070 W - 080 W	80 deg. S	9 deg. N
080 W - 084 W	80 deg. S	9 deg. N
084 W - 090 W	80 deg. S	14 deg. N
090 W - 100 W	80 deg. S	18 deg. N
100 W - 145 E	80 deg. S	66 deg. N
145 E - 100 E	0 deg.	66 deg. N

Indian Ocean

Longitude band	Southern Latitude	Northern Latitude
020 E - 100 E	80 deg. S	31 deg. N
100 E - 145 E	80 deg. S	0 deg.

 

Query Limits

For obvious reasons, we have had to put some constraints on the size of the result sets. With the exception of requesting complete profile data from Climate, these are quite generous and should not present a problem. If your query exceeds these limits, you will get an email message that your query returned too many rows and didn't execute. The solution is to break your query up into smaller sub-areas and try again.