Flight/Instrument Status Viewer - More Information
This viewer was created to fill the need of allowing researchers to
view daily flight, instrument, and cloud image data in near real-time,
particularly during field experiments. It uses Java to provide
highly-interactive activities with your browser. Image, flight and
instrument status are retrieved from a server machine in Wisconsin that
employs both Java- and IDL-based techniques to supply the data needed
to drive the browser. Most of the image data is supplied by NASA.
This applet is designed for a 1024x768 screen resolution. It is best
viewed under Nescape 4.05, IE4, or HotJava. Because lots of imagery is
used, this will be somewhat memory intensive, as well as requiring lots
of color levels; therefore, you may need to shut down other
applications to allow this to run well.
To get started, see the quick start-up instructions
here
The viewer controls
The date pull-down menu
This menu lists each date for which flight information,
instrument and/or satellite imagery are available. Selecting a
date different from the one being viewed will automatically cause
the 4KM browse images, the flight, and the instrument status data
to be fetched from the server.
The Hourly images only checkbox
This check box affects how many images are loaded from the server
when you select a day. Normally, the ER-2 flight times are used
to establish a range of times and all images within that range
will be downloaded. Images are normally available every 15
minutes. By checking the box (the default), only one image per
hour will be downloaded in order to make quick-looks much
faster.
The VIS and IR and WV buttons
The highlighted button (with a white background) indicates which
band is being viewed. To view the other band, just click on that
button and the browse images will change immediately.
When you display high resolution images, only the information
from the selected band and transferred from the server.
The time slider
The slider controls what data are being viewed. The buttons on
each end step in 1 minute increments. Clicking on the interior
of the slider will jump by 10 minutes. You may also drag the
slider knob to more quickly change the time.
The time being viewed appears in the time text box just
above the slider. The aircraft postions are shown on the plots
to the nearest minute. The instrument status reflects the status
at the time indicated. The satellite images are those closest to
the time indicated.
You may also type in a time directly into the time text box.
You should delete the value shown, type in your new value, and
then press the Enter key.
The Load HiRes button
This button will become active after you drag the
selector box (which outlines the region that will be covered when
you load the high resolution data) around. To drag the
pointer, press and hold the
left mouse button while moving the pointer around in the browse
image. A cyan-colored box appears, which now moves with the
mouse pointer. When you have it positioned
where you want it, release the button. You may want to step thru
time a bit, and perhaps refine the positioning of this box.
When you're satisfied, select the band you want (VIS or
IR or WV) and then click on the Load HiRes button.
Please be patient; this usually takes the server some time to
create the subsections and trasfer them to your workstation.
The Zoom HiRes button
In a manner similar to selecting a 1KM section of the browse
images for viewing, you may now also select a region within the
1KM high resolution images to be magnified. When you drag the
mouse in the high resolution display, the Zoom HiRes
button becomes active. Whenever you want to zoom in, just click
on this button. The image sequence and flight track data are
reloaded, and the button now says Un-zoom. When you want
to restore the 1KM high resolution images and flight tracks, just
click on the Un-zoom button.
The flight and instrument information
The aircraft positions and flight are shown only at whole minute points.
If there was more than one flight on this date, each airplane and
flight path is shown in a different color. The time
slider has a range that is computed so as to include all
aircraft flights for this date. If a plane departed after or
arrived before other aircraft, its icon may not move when you
change the time.
The instrument status data is shown in the box at the bottom of the
window. The instrument status words have the following meanings:
- OK means that the instrument was on and recording
data
- no data means that there is some data today, but not
at this particular time
- --inoperative-- means that there was no data for this
instrument
- UNKNOWN means that there was no information about
this instrument available
If the name of an instrument is not listed, then no information
about it was available.
Printing
Information about printing the screen is in the
Questions & Credits section.
Click here to run the viewer