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<html><!-- InstanceBegin template="/Templates/MyUnidata.dwt" codeOutsideHTMLIsLocked="true" -->
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<TITLE>Software for Manipulating or Displaying NetCDF Data</TITLE>
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<META NAME="UIINDEX" CONTENT="0">
<META NAME="BOOKMARK" CONTENT="NetCDF Utilities">
<META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="russ">
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="netcdf, utilities, software, use">
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="This document provides references to software packages that may be used for manipulating or displaying netCDF data. We include information about both freely-available and licensed (commercial) software that can be used with netCDF data. ">
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<body>
<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="Content Goes Here" --><a id="netcdf" name="netcdf"></a>
<hr />
<h1>Software for Manipulating or Displaying NetCDF Data</h1>
<p>
This document provides references to software packages that may be used for manipulating
or displaying <a
href="/software/netcdf/">netCDF</a> data. We include information about
both freely-available and licensed (commercial) software that can be used with
netCDF data. We rely on developers to help keep this list up-to-date. If you know
of corrections or additions, please <a href="mailto:support@unidata.ucar.edu">send
them to us</a>. Where practical, we would like to include WWW links to information
about these packages in the HTML version of this document.
</p>
<p>
Other useful guides to utilities that can handle netCDF data include ARM's list of
<a href="http://science.arm.gov/%7ecflynn/ARM_Tested_Tools/"
>ARM-tested netCDF data tools</a>, which includes some downloadable
binaries and the NOAA Geophysical
Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
<a href=
"http://nomads.gfdl.noaa.gov/sandbox/products/vis/data/netcdf/GFDL_VG_NetCDF_Utils.html">
guide to netCDF utilities</a>.
</p>
<hr />
<h2><a href="#freely">Freely Available Software</a></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#ANDX">ANDX (ARM NetCDF Data eXtract) and ANAX (ARM NetCDF ASCII eXtract)</a></li>
<li><a href="#ANTS" >ANTS (ARM NetCDF Tool Suite)</a></li>
<li><a href="#ARGOS">ARGOS (interActive thRee-dimensional Graphics ObServatory)</a></li>
<li><a href="#CDAT">CDAT (Climate Data Analysis Tool)</a></li>
<li><a href="#CDFconvert" >CDFconvert (Convert netCDF to RPN and GEMPAK Grids)</a></li>
<li><a href="#cdfsync">cdfsync (network synchronization of netCDF files)</a></li>
<li><a href="#CDO" >CDO (Climate Data Operators)</a></li>
<li><a href="#CIDS Tools">CIDS Tools</a></li>
<li><a href="#CSIRO-MATLAB">CSIRO MATLAB/netCDF interface</a></li>
<li><a href="#EPIC">EPIC</a></li>
<li><a href="#ExcelUse" >Excel Use</a></li>
<li><a href="#EzGet">EzGet</a></li>
<li><a href="#FAN">FAN (File Array Notation)</a></li>
<li><a href="#FERRET">FERRET</a></li>
<li><a href="#fimex" >FIMEX (File Interpolation, Manipulation, and EXtraction)</a></li>
<li><a href="#fwtools" >FWTools (GIS Binary Kit for Windows and Linux)</a></li>
<li><a href="#GDAL" >GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Library)</a></li>
<li><a href="#GDL" >GDL (GNU Data Language)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Gfdnavi" >Gfdnavi (Geophysical fluid data navigator)</a></li>
<li><a href="#GMT">GMT (Generic Mapping Tools)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Grace">Grace</a></li>
<li><a href="#GrADS">GrADS (Grid Analysis and Display System)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Gri">Gri</a></li>
<li><a href="#GXSM">GXSM - Gnome X Scanning Microscopy project</a></li>
<li><a href="#HDF interface">HDF (Hierarchical Data Format) interface</a></li>
<li><a href="#HDF-EOS" >HDF-EOS to netCDF converter</a></li>
<li><a href="#HIPHOP">HIPHOP (Handy IDL-Program for HDF-Output Plotting)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Hyperslab OPerator Suite (HOPS)">HOPS (Hyperslab OPerator Suite)</a></li>
<li><a href="#iCDF" >iCDF (imports chromatographic netCDF data into MATLAB)</a></li>
<li><a href="#IDV" >IDV (Integrated Data Viewer)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Ingrid">Ingrid</a></li>
<li><a href="#IntelArrayVisualizer" >Intel Array Visualizer</a></li>
<li><a href="#IVE">IVE (Interactive Visualization Environment)</a></li>
<li><a href="#JSON" >JSON format with the ncdump-json utility</a></li>
<li><a href="#Java interface">Java interface</a></li>
<li><a href="#KST">Kst (2D plotting tool)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Labview-API" >Labview interface</a></li>
<li><a href="#MBDyn">MBDyn (MultiBody Dynamics)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Max_diff_nc">Max_diff_nc</a></li>
<li><a href="#MeteoExplorer" >MeteoExplorer</a></li>
<li><a href="#MeteoInfo" >MeteoInfo</a></li>
<li><a href="#MexEPS">MexEPS (MATLAB interface)</a></li>
<li><a href="#MEXNC">MEXNC and SNCTOOLS (a MATLAB interface)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Mirone">Mirone (Windows MATLAB-based display)</a></li>
<li><a href="#ncBrowse">ncBrowse (netCDF File Browser)</a></li>
<li><a href="#nccmp" >nccmp (netCDF compare)</a></li>
<li><a href="#ncdx" >ncdx (netCDF for OpenDX)</a></li>
<li><a href="#ncensemble" >ncensemble (command line utility to do ensemble statistics)</a></li>
<li><a href="#NCL">NCL (NCAR Command Language)</a></li>
<li><a href="#NCO">NCO (NetCDF Operators)</a></li>
<li><a href="#ncregrid" >ncregrid</a></li>
<li><a href="#nctoolbox" >nctoolbox (a MATLAB common data model interface)</a></li>
<li><a href="#ncview">ncview</a></li>
<li><a href="#ncvtk" >ncvtk</a></li>
<li><a href="#netcdf_tools" >netcdf tools</a></li>
<li><a href="#netcdf4excel" >netcdf4excel (add-in for MS Excel)</a></li>
<li><a href="#netcdf95" >NetCDF95 alternative Fortran API</a></li>
<li><a href="#WCT">NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit (WCT)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Objective-C" >Objective-C interface</a></li>
<li><a href="#NCMEX" >Octave interface</a></li>
<li><a href="#Octave" >Octave interface (Barth)</a></li>
<li><a href="#OPeNDAP">OPeNDAP (formerly DODS)</a></li>
<li><a href="#OpenDX">OpenDX (formerly IBM Data Explorer)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Panoply" >Panoply</a></li>
<li><a href="#Parallel-NetCDF" >Parallel-NetCDF</a></li>
<li><a href="#Paraview" >Paraview and vtkCSCSNetCDF</a></li>
<li><a href="#Perl" >Perl interfaces</a></li>
<li><a href="#PolyPaint+">PolyPaint+</a></li>
<li><a href="#pomegranate" >Pomegranate</a></li>
<li><a href="#pupynere" >Pupynere (PUre PYthon NEtcdf REader)</a></li>
<li><a href="#PyNGL" >PyNGL and PyNIO</a></li>
<li><a href="#Python">Python interfaces</a></li>
<li><a href="#QGIS" >QGIS (Quantum GIS)</a></li>
<li><a href="#R">R interface</a></li>
<li><a href="#Ruby" >Ruby interface</a></li>
<li><a href="#SDS" >Scientific DataSet (SDS) Library</a></li>
<li><a href="#SIS">Apache Spatial Information System (SIS)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Tcl/Tk">Tcl/Tk interfaces</a></li>
<li><a href="#Tcl-nap" >Tcl-nap (N-dimensional array processor)</a></li>
<li><a href="#VB" >Visual Basic and VB.net</a></li>
<li><a href="#VisAD">VisAD</a></li>
<li><a href="#WebWinds">WebWinds</a></li>
<li><a href="#xray" >xray (Python N-D labelled arrays)</a></li>
<li><a href="#Zebra">Zebra</a></li>
<li><a href="#user">User-contributed software</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="#commercial">Commercial or Licensed Packages</a></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#ViewNcDap" >ASA ViewNcDap</a></li>
<li><a href="#Avizo" >Avizo</a></li>
<li><a href="#AVS">AVS</a></li>
<li><a href="#BCS-UFI" >Barrodale UFI</a></li>
<li><a href="#DioVISTA/Storm" >DioVISTA/Storm</a></li>
<li><a href="#EnSight" >EnSight</a></li>
<li><a href="#Environmental WorkBench">Environmental WorkBench</a></li>
<li><a href="#ESRI" >ESRI</a></li>
<li><a href="#FME" >FME</a></li>
<li><a href="#HDF-Explorer" >HDF Explorer</a></li>
<li><a href="#IDL">IDL Interface</a></li>
<li><a href="#InterFormat">InterFormat</a></li>
<li><a href="#IRIS Explorer Module">IRIS Explorer Module</a></li>
<li><a href="#LeoNetCDF" >LeoNetCDF</a></li>
<li><a href="#Mathematica" >Mathematica</a></li>
<li><a href="#MATLAB">MATLAB</a></li>
<li><a href="#Noesys">Noesys</a></li>
<li><a href="#Origin" >Origin</a></li>
<li><a href="#PPLUS">PPLUS</a></li>
<li><a href="#PV-Wave">PV-Wave</a></li>
<li><a href="#SlicerDicer">Slicer Dicer</a></li>
<li><a href="#Surfer">Surfer</a></li>
<li><a href="#vGeo" >vGeo</a></li>
<li><a href="#VISAGE and Decimate">VISAGE and Decimate</a></li>
<li><a href="#Voyager">Voyager</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p></p>
<h1 id="freely">Freely Available Software</h1>
<h2><a id="ANDX" name="ANDX">ANDX and ANAX</a></h2>
<p>
The ARM Program has developed
<a href="http://engineering.arm.gov/~sbeus/andx-web/html/" >ANDX (ARM
NetCDF Data eXtract)</a>,
a command-line utility designed for routine examination and
extraction of data from netcdf files. Data can be displayed
graphically (line-plot, scatter-plot, overlay, color-intensity, etc.)
or extracted as ASCII data. Whether displayed graphically or extracted
as ASCII, results can be saved to disk or viewed on screen.
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://science.arm.gov/~cflynn/ARM_Tested_Tools/" >ANAX (ARM
NetCDF ASCII eXtract)</a> is a scaled-down version of ANDX -- it is
designed to only extract ASCII data. All features of ANDX pertaining
to non-graphic data extraction are included in ANAX.
</p>
<h2><a id="ANTS" name="ANTS">ANTS</a></h2>
<p>
The ARM Program has developed <a
href="http://science.arm.gov/~cflynn/ANTS/" >ANTS (ARM NetCDF Tool
Suite)</a>, a collection of netCDF tools and utilities providing
various means of creating and modifying netcdf files. ANTS is based on
nctools written by Chuck Denham. The utilities within nctools were
modified to compile with version 3.5 of the netCDF library, the
command syntax was modified for consistency with other tools, and
changes were made to accommodate ARM standard netCDF.
</p>
<p> The original functions from nctools were intended mainly for the
creation, definition, and copying of fundamental netCDF elements. ARM
added others which focus on manipulation of data within existing
netCDF files. Additional functions have special support for
multi-dimensional data such as "slicing" cross sections from
multi-dimensional variable data or joining lesser-dimensional fields
to form multi-dimensional structures. Functions have been added to
support execution of arithmetic and logical operations, bundling or
splitting netCDF files, comparing the structure or content of files,
and so on.
</p>
<p> Essentially every type of netCDF library function call is
exercised in ANTS. In this way then, this open-source collection of
tools also represents a library of coding examples for fundamental
netCDF tasks. See the <a href="http://science.arm.gov/~cflynn/ANTS/"
>website</a> for more information.
</p>
<h2><a id="ARGOS" name="ARGOS">ARGOS</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.lapeth.ethz.ch/argos/index.html">ARGOS</a> (interActive thRee-dimensional
Graphics ObServatory) is a new IDL-based interactive 3D visualization
tool, developed by <a
href="http://www.lapeth.ethz.ch/~david/index.html">David N. Bresch</a> and <a href="http://www.lapeth.ethz.ch/~mark/index.html">Mark
A. Liniger</a> at the Institute for Atmospheric Science at the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology, ETH, Zürich.
</p>
<p>A highly optimized graphical user interface allows quick and elegant creation
of even complex 3D graphics (volume rendering, isosurfaces,...), including Z-buffered
overlays (with hidden lines), light and data shading, Xray images, 3D trajectories,
animations and virtual flights around your data, all documented in a full on-line
<a
href="http://www.lapeth.ethz.ch/argos/argos_general.html">html-help</a>. The netCDF
data format is preferred, but any other format can be read by providing an IDL
(or FORTRAN or C or C++) interface. Some toolboxes (for atmospheric model output,
trajectory display, radar data) have already been written, others might easily
be added (in IDL, FORTRAN or C code). All interactive activities are tracked
in a script, allowing quick reconstruction of anything done as well as running
ARGOS in batch script mode.</p>
<p>Information about <a
href="http://www.lapeth.ethz.ch/argos/argos_copyright.html">copyright and licensing
conditions</a> are available. For further information and installation, please
E-mail to: bresch@atmos.umnw.ethz.ch</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="CDAT" name="CDAT">CDAT</a></h2>
The <a href="http://cdat.sf.net">Climate Data Analysis Tool
(CDAT)</a>, developed by the <a
href="http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/">Program for Climate Model Diagnosis
and Intercomparison (PCMDI)</a> at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, provides
the capabilities needed to analyze model data, perform complex mathematical calculations,
and graphically display the results. It provides the necessary tools to diagnose,
validate, and intercompare large observational and global climate model data sets.
<p>
It includes the ability to ingest
large climate datasets in netCDF, HDF, DRS, and GrADS/GRIB format;
the Visualization and Computation System (VCS) module, visually displays and
animates ingested or created data; and the Library of AMIP Data Transmission
Standards (LATS) module outputs data in the machine-independent netCDF or GrADS/GRIB
file formats.
</p>
<p>
In addition, the Command Line Interface (CLI) module allows
CDAT to receive argument and function input via the command line, and the Graphical
User Interface (GUI) allows CDAT to receive argument and function input via
a point-and-click environment.
</p>
<p>
The software, which runs as a standalone process or within PCMDI&#39;s
Visualization and Computation System (VCS), provides climate scientists with
an easy and fast method to read different file formats, and to analyze and
graphically display climate data in an integrated fashion. CDAT includes a
set of pre-defined functions to allow the user to manipulate the data and
send the output to a file which can be viewed as an image, or as a collection
of images in an animation. The software has a gradual learning curve, allowing
the novice user to quickly obtain useful results.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="CDFconvert" name="CDFconvert">CDFconvert</a></h2>
<p>
The <a href="http://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/rmctc/cdf_cvt/" >MRG
CDFconvert package</a> provided by the Mesoscale Research Group,
McGill University/SUNY Albany, is designed to address data conversion
issues for gridded datasets stored under the <a
href="http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/noaa_coop/coop_cdf_profile.html">COARDS</a>
convention. CDFconvert converts regular Cylindrical Equidistant
(Lat/Long) and Gaussian (Spherical) netCDF grids into either the
Canadian <a
href="http://www.cmc.ec.gc.ca/rpn/modcom/si/libraries/rmnlib/fstd/index.html"
>RPN Standard File</a> or <a href="/software/gempak/index.html"
>GEMPAK</a> file formats. MRG CDFconvert has the flexibility to handle
netCDF files generated by a number of sources, including NCEP and
ECMWF. User-definable conversion tables make the extension of the
package to different datasets possible.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="cdfsync" name="cdfsync">cdfsync</a></h2>
<p>
Joe Sirott of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory has
developed cdfsync, a program that allows users to rapidly synchronize a
set of netCDF files over a network. Fast synchronization times are
achieved by only transmitting the differences between files. It is
built on the Open Source <a href="http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/" >rsync</a>
program, but contains a number of optimizations including:
<ul>
<li>Special handling of netCDF files for faster synchronization
calculations</li>
<li>Much faster updates of large numbers of small netCDF files</li>
<li>In-place updates of large netCDF files</li>
</ul>
<p>The latest version should run on Linux variants and Solaris.</p>
More information is available at the <a
href="http://www.epic.noaa.gov/epic/software/cdfsync/">cdfsync website</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="CDO" name="CDO">CDO (Climate Data Operators)</a></h2>
<p>
Uwe Schulzweida at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology has developed
<a href="http://code.zmaw.de/projects/cdo" >CDO</a>, a collection of
Operators to manipulate and analyze
Climate Data files. Supported file formats include netCDF and GRIB.
There are more than 350 operators available. The following
table provides a brief overview of the main categories.
</p>
<ul>
<li>File information (info, sinfo, diff, ...)</li>
<li>File operations (copy, cat, merge, split*, ...)</li>
<li>Selection (selcode, selvar, sellevel, seltimestep, ...)</li>
<li>Missing values (setctomiss, setmisstoc, setrtomiss)</li>
<li>Arithmetic (add, sub, mul, div, ...)</li>
<li>Mathematical functions (sqrt, exp, log, sin, cos, ...)</li>
<li>Comparision (eq, ne, le, lt, ge, gt, ...)</li>
<li>Conditions (ifthen, ifnotthen, ifthenc, ifnotthenc)</li>
<li>Field statistics (fldsum, fldavg, fldstd, fldmin, fldmax, ...)</li>
<li>Vertical statistics (vertsum, vertavg, vertstd, vertmin, ...)</li>
<li>Time range statistics (timavg, yearavg, monavg, dayavg, ...)</li>
<li>Field interpolation (remapbil, remapcon, remapdis, ...)</li>
<li>Vertical interpolation (ml2pl, ml2hl)</li>
<li>Time interpolation (inttime, intyear)</li>
</ul>
<p>
As an example of use of CDO, converting
from GRIB to netCDF can be as simple as
<pre>
cdo -f nc copy file.grb file.nc
</pre>
or with relative time axis (for usage with GrADS)
<pre>
cdo -r -f nc copy file.grb file.nc
</pre>
or using ECMWF reanalysis on a reduced grid
<pre>
cdo -R -f nc copy file.grb file.nc
</pre>
</p>
<p>
More information is available on the <a
href="http://code.zmaw.de/projects/cdo" >CDO homepage</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="CIDS Tools" name="CIDS Tools">CIDS Tools</a></h2>
The Center for Clouds Chemistry and Climate (<a
href="http://www-c4.ucsd.edu/">C4</a>) Integrated Data Systems (<a
href="http://www-c4.ucsd.edu/~cids/">CIDS</a>) group has developed several useful
netCDF utilities:
<ul>
<li>cdf2idl: Writes an IDL script to read a NetCDF file.</li>
<li>cdf2c: Writes C code to read a NetCDF file.</li>
<li>cdf2fortran: Writes FORTRAN source code to read a NetCDF file.</li>
<li>cdf2asc: Dumps NetCDF data to an ASCII file.</li>
</ul>
The source for these utilities can be downloaded from <a
href="http://www-c4.ucsd.edu/~cids/software/visual.html">CIDS NetCDF Visualization
Tools site</a>.
<p></p>
<h2><a id="CSIRO-MATLAB" name="CSIRO-MATLAB">CSIRO MATLAB/netCDF interface</a></h2>
The <a
href="http://www.marine.csiro.au/sw/matlab-netcdf.html">CSIRO MATLAB/netCDF interface</a>
is now available from the <a
href="http://www.marine.csiro.au">CSIRO Marine Laboratories</a>.
<p>The CSIRO MATLAB/netCDF interface is run from within MATLAB and has a simple
syntax. It has options for automatically handling missing values, scale factors,
and permutation of hyperslabs. It is, however, limited to retrieving data from,
and information about, existing netCDF files.</p>
<p>The basis of the interface is a machine-dependent mex-file called
mexcdf53. Rather than call the mex-file
directly users are advised to employ both <a href="#NC4ML5">Chuck Denham&#39;s
netCDF toolbox</a> and the CSIRO MATLAB/netCDF interface described here. For
read-only access to existing netCDF data, the CSIRO interface has a simpler
syntax than the netCDF Toolbox, but the latter may also be used to create and
manipulate netCDF variables and datasets.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="EPIC" name="EPIC">EPIC</a></h2>
NOAA&#39;s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (<a
href="http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/">PMEL</a>) has developed the <a
href="http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/">EPIC</a> software package for oceanographic
data. EPIC provides graphical display and data field manipulation for multi-dimensional
netCDF files (up to 4 dimensions). PMEL has been using this software on Unix and
VMS several years. At present, they have:
<p></p>
<ul>
<li>a data file I/O library ( <a
href="http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/eps-manual/epslib_toc.html">epslib</a>, which
is layered on top of the netCDF library).</li>
<li>epslib allows transparent access to multiple data file formats</li>
<li>a <a href="http://www.epic.noaa.gov/epic/software/mexeps.htm">MATLAB MexEPS
interface</a> for using any supported EPIC file with MATLAB</li>
<li><a
href="http://www.epic.noaa.gov/epic/software/ep_programs.htm">suite of EPIC programs</a>
for graphics and analysis of hydrographic profile data and time series data.</li>
</ul>
This software was developed on Sun/Unix and is also supported for DEC/Ultrix and
VAX/VMS as a system for data management, display and analysis system for observational
oceanographic time series and hydrographic data. The EPIC software includes over
50 programs for oceanographic display and analysis, as well as utilities for putting
in-situ or observational data on-line (with on-the-fly graphics and data download)
on the WWW.
<p>The developers are interested in coordinating with others who may be developing
oceanographic software for use with netCDF files. The EPIC software is available
via anonymous FTP from ftp.noaapmel.gov in the epic/ and /eps directories. To
obtain the EPIC software, please see Web pages at <a
href="http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/download/index.html">http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/download/index.html</a>.
For information about EPIC, please see the Web pages at <a
href="http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/index.html">http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/index.html</a>.
Contact epic@pmel.noaa.gov, or Nancy Soreide, nns@noaapmel.gov, for more information.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="ExcelUse" name="ExcelUse">Excel Use</a></h2>
<p>
Several packages are available for accessing netCDF data from
Microsoft Excel,
including the <a href="#netcdf4excel" >netcdf4excel</a> add-in for Excel, and a <a
href="#SDS" >Scientific Dataset (SDS) Library</a> that supports a
DataSetEditor add-in for Excel to view and modify various
forms of data, including netCDF.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="EzGet" name="EzGet">EzGet</a></h2>
A FORTRAN library called <a
href="http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ktaylor/ezget/ezget.html">EzGet</a> has been developed
at <a
href="http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/PCMDI.html">PCMDI</a> to facilitate retrieval
of modeled and observed climate data stored in popular formats including <a
href="http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/drach/DRS.html">DRS</a>, <a
href="/software/netcdf/">netCDF</a>, <a
href="http://grads.iges.org/grads">GrADS</a>, and, if a control file is supplied,
<a
href="ftp://nic.fb4.noaa.gov/pub/nws/nmc/docs/gribed1/">GRIB</a>. You can specify
how the data should be structured and whether it should undergo a grid transformation
before you receive it, even when you know little about the original structure
of the stored data (e.g., its original dimension order, grid, and domain).
<p>The EzGet library comprises a set of subroutines that can be linked to any
FORTRAN program. EzGet reads files through the <a
href="http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/drach/cdunif.html">cdunif</a> interface, but use
of EzGet does not require familiarity with cdunif. The main advantages of using
EzGet instead of the lower level cdunif library include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Substantial error trapping capabilities and detailed error messages</li>
<li>Versatile capability of conveniently selecting data from specified regions
(e.g., oceans, North America, all land areas north of 45 degrees latitude,
etc.)</li>
<li>Ability to map data to a new grid at the time it is retrieved by EzGet</li>
<li>Automatic creation of ``weights&#39;&#39; for use in subsequent averaging
or masking of data</li>
<li>Increased control in specifying the domain of the data to be retrieved.</li>
</ul>
<p>For more information about EzGet, including instructions for downloading the
documentation or software, see the EzGet home page at <a
href="http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ktaylor/ezget/ezget.html">http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ktaylor/ezget/ezget.html</a>.
For questions or comments on EzGet, contact Karl Taylor (taylor13@llnl.gov).</p>
<h2><a id="FAN" name="FAN">FAN</a></h2>
<a href="/software/netcdf/fan_utils.html">FAN (File Array Notation)</a>
is Harvey Davies&#39; package for extracting and manipulating array data from
netCDF files. The package includes the three utilities nc2text, text2nc, and ncrob
for printing selected data from netCDF arrays, copying ASCII data into netCDF
arrays, and performing various operations (sum, mean, max, min, product, ...)
on netCDF arrays. A library (fanlib) is also included that supports the use of
FAN from C programs. The package is available via anonymous FTP from <a
href="ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/netcdf/contrib/fan.tar.Z">ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/netcdf/contrib/fan.tar.Z</a>.
Questions and comments may be sent to Harvey Davies, harvey.davies@csiro.au.
<p></p>
<h2><a id="FERRET" name="FERRET">FERRET</a></h2>
<a href="http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/Ferret/">FERRET</a> is an interactive computer
visualization and analysis environment designed to meet the needs of oceanographers
and meteorologists analyzing large and complex gridded data sets. It is available
by anonymous ftp from abyss.pmel.noaa.gov for a number of computer systems: SUN
(Solaris and SUNOS), DECstation (Ultrix and OSF/1), SGI, VAX/VMS and Macintosh
(limited support), and IBM RS-6000 (soon to be released).
<p>FERRET offers a Mathematica-like approach to analysis; new variables may be
defined interactively as mathematical expressions involving data set variables.
Calculations may be applied over arbitrarily shaped regions. Fully documented
graphics are produced with a single command. Graphics styles included line plots,
scatter plots, contour plots, color-filled contour plots, vector plots, wire
frame plots, etc. Detailed controls over plot characteristics, page layout and
overlays are provided. NetCDF is supported both as an input and an output format.</p>
<p>Many excellent software packages have been developed recently for scientific
visualization. The features that make FERRET distinctive among these packages
are Mathematica-like flexibility, geophysical formatting (latitude/longitude/date),
&quot;intelligent&quot; connection to its data base, special memory management
for very large calculations, and symmetrical processing in 4 dimensions. Contact
Steve Hankin, hankin@noaapmel.gov, for more information.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="fimex" name="fimex" >Fimex</a></h2>
<p>Heiko Klein (Norwegian Meteorological Institute) has developed
the <a href="https://wiki.met.no/fimex/start" >fimex</a> (File
Interpolation, Manipulation, and EXtraction) C++ library
for gridded geospatial data. It converts between several
data formats (currently netCDF, NcML, GRIB1 or GRIB2, and felt). Fimex
also enables you
to change the projection and interpolation of scalar and vector grids,
to subset the gridded data, and to extract only parts
of the files. Fimex supports a growing list of other <a
href="https://wiki.met.no/fimex/features" >features</a>, including
support for most NcML features and for netCDF-4 compression.
</p>
<p>
For simple usage, Fimex also comes with the command line program fimex.</p>
<p>Documentation and downloads are available
from the <a href="http://wiki.met.no/fimex/" >fimex web site</a>.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="fwtools" name="fwtools">FWTools (GIS Binary Kit for Windows and Linux)</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://fwtools.maptools.org/" >FWTools</a> is Frank Warmerdam's set of Open Source GIS
binaries for Windows (win32) and Linux (x86 32bit) systems.
The kits are intended to be easy for end users to install and get going with, and include OpenEV,
GDAL, MapServer, PROJ.4 and OGDI as well as some supporting components.
FWTools aims to track the latest development versions of the packages included as opposed to
official releases, "to give folks a chance to use the <em>latest and greatest</em>".
</p>
<h2><a id="GDAL" name="GDAL">GDAL</a></h2>
<p>Frank Warmerdam's <a
href="http://www.remotesensing.org/gdal/index.html" >GDAL</a> is a
translator library for raster geospatial data formats that is released
under an X/MIT style Open Source license. As a library, it presents a
<a href="http://www.remotesensing.org/gdal/gdal_datamodel.html">
single abstract data model</a> to the calling application for all
supported formats. The related <a
href="http://www.remotesensing.org/gdal/ogr">OGR</a> library (which
lives within the GDAL source tree) provides a similar capability for
simple features vector data.</p>
<p> GDAL is in active use in several projects, and includes roughly 40
format drivers, including a translator for netCDF (read/write). Other
translators include GeoTIFF (read/write), Erdas Imagine (read/write),
ESRI .BIL (read), .aux labeled raw (read/write), DTED (read), SDTS
DEM (read), CEOS (read), JPEG (read/write), PNG (read/write), Geosoft
GXF (read) and Arc/Info Binary Grid (read). A full list is available
in <a
href="http://www.remotesensing.org/gdal/formats_list.html">Supported
Formats</a>.
</p>
<p>GDAL has recently included support for the netCDF-4 enhanced data
model and netCDF-4 format, as well as improved support for recent
additions to the CF conventions.</p>
<p> As an example of the use of GDAL, converting an ArcInfo ASCII grid
to netCDF (GMT conventions) as easy as:
<pre>
gdal_translate arc_ascii.grd -of GMT gmt_grid.nc
</pre>
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="GDL" name="GDL">GDL (GNU Data Language)</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://gnudatalanguage.sourceforge.net/" >GDL</a> is a free
implementation of most of the programming language supported by <a href="#IDL" >IDL</a>
(Interactive Data Language). GDL supports the netCDF-3 API.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Gfdnavi" name="Gfdnavi">Gfdnavi (Geophysical fluid data navigator)</a></h2>
<p> <a
href="http://www.gfd-dennou.org/arch/davis/gfdnavi/index.en.htm"
>Gfdnavi</a> is a web-based tool to archive, share, distribute, analyze, and
visualize geophysical fluid data and knowledge.
The software is under development by members of the GFD Dennou Club,
including T. Horinouchi (RISH, Kyoto U.), S. Nishizawa (RIMS, Kyoto
U.), and colleagues. Gfdnavi uses a metadata
database for managing and analyzing data and visualizations. It also
permits publishing data for web access and will soon support access to
data on other Gfdnavi servers. Web service APIs are now under
development. A presentation <a
href="http://www.gfd-dennou.org/arch/davis/gfdnavi/presen/2007-03-05_GfdnaviIntro.En/pub/"
>Introducing Gfdnavi</a> describes the architecture and shows examples
of use.
</p>
<p>
Gfdnavi is dependent on two technologies:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.rubyonrails.com/" >Ruby on Rails</a>, a
framework for web applications, and</li>
<li><a href="http://ruby.gfd-dennou.org/" >the Dennou Ruby
Project</a>,
a collection of tools for geophysical
data. These tools include <a
href="http://ruby.gfd-dennou.org/products/gphys/" >GPhys</a>
software to handle GRIB, GrADS, and netCDF data uniformly.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>As an example of this technology, Takuji Kubota has established <a
href="http://www.gsmap.aero.osakafu-u.ac.jp/gfdnavi/" >a Gfdnavi server</a> for the
Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (<a href="http://www.radar.aero.osakafu-u.ac.jp/~gsmap/index_english.html" >GSMaP</a>) project.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="GMT" name="GMT">GMT</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/">GMT</a> (Generic Mapping Tools) is
an open source collection of about 60 tools for manipulating
geographic and Cartesian data sets (including filtering, trend
fitting, gridding, projecting, etc.) and producing Encapsulated
PostScript File (EPS) illustrations ranging from simple x-y plots via
contour maps to artificially illuminated surfaces and 3-D perspective
views. GMT supports 30 map projections and transformations and comes
with support data such as coastlines, rivers, and political
boundaries. GMT is developed and maintained by Paul Wessel and Walter
H. F. Smith with help from a global set of volunteers, and is
supported by the National Science Foundation. It is released under
the GNU General Public License.
</p>
<p>
The package can access COARDS-compliant netCDF grids as well as ASCII,
native binary, or user-defined formats. The GMT package is available
via anonymous ftp from several servers; see <a
href="http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu" >gmt.soest.hawaii.edu</a>
for installation information.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Grace" name="Grace">Grace</a></h2>
<a href="http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/Grace/">Grace</a> is a tool to make
two-dimensional plots of scientific data, including 1D netCDF
variables.
It runs under the X Window System and
OSF Motif (recent versions of LessTif are, by and large, fine, too). Grace runs
on practically any version of Unix. As well, it has been successfully ported to
VMS, OS/2 and Win9*/NT (some functionality may be missing, though). Grace is a
descendant of ACE/gr.
<p>A few features of Grace are:</p>
<ul>
<li>User defined scaling, tick marks, labels, symbols, line styles, colors.</li>
<li>Batch mode for unattended plotting.</li>
<li>Read and write parameters used during a session.</li>
<li>Regressions, splines, running averages, DFT/FFT, cross/auto-correlation,
...</li>
<li>Support for dynamic module loading.</li>
<li>Hardcopy support for PostScript, PDF, GIF, and PNM formats.</li>
<li>Device-independent Type1 font rastering.</li>
<li>Ability to read or write netCDF data.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="GrADS" name="GrADS">GrADS</a></h2>
<a href="http://grads.iges.org/grads/grads.html">GrADS</a> (Grid
Analysis and Display System)
is an interactive desktop tool from <a
href="http://grads.iges.org/cola.html">COLA/IGES</a> that is currently in use
worldwide for the analysis and display of earth science data. GrADS is implemented
on all commonly available UNIX workstations, Apple Macintosh, and DOS or Linux
based PCs, and is freely available via anonymous ftp. GrADS provides an integrated
environment for access, manipulation, and display of earth science
data in several forms, including GRIB and netCDF.
For more information, see the <a
href="http://grads.iges.org/grads/gadoc/users.html" >GrADS User's
Guide</a>.
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Gri" name="Gri">Gri</a></h2>
Gri is an extensible plotting language for producing scientific graphs, such as
x-y plots, contour plots, and image plots. Dan Kelley of Dalhousie University
is the author of Gri, which can read data from netCDF files as well as ASCII and
native binary data. For more information on Gri, see the URL <a
href="http://gri.sourceforge.net/">http://gri.sourceforge.net/</a>.
<p></p>
<h2><a id="GXSM" name="GXSM">GXSM</a></h2> The GXSM is the Gnome X
Scanning Microscopy project, it is a bit more than just a piece of
software (the GXSM itself), there is full hardware support for DSP
cards including open source DSP software and a growing set of SPM
related electronics. For more information, see <a
href="http://gxsm.sourceforge.net/">http://gxsm.sourceforge.net/</a>.
<p></p>
<h2><a id="HDF interface" name="HDF interface">HDF interface</a></h2>
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) has added the netCDF
interface to their <a
href="http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/">Hierarchical Data Format (HDF)</a> software.
HDF is an extensible data format for self-describing files. A substantial set
of applications and utilities based on HDF is available; these support raster-image
manipulation and display and browsing through multidimensional scientific data.
An implementation is now available that provides the netCDF interface to HDF.
With this software, it is possible to use the netCDF calling interface to place
data into an HDF file. The netCDF calling interface has not changed and netCDF
files stored in XDR format are readable, so existing programs and data will still
be usable (although programs will need to be relinked to the new library). There
is currently no support for the mixing of HDF and netCDF structures. For example,
a raster image can exist in the same file as a netCDF object, but you have to
use the Raster Image interface to read the image and the netCDF interface to read
the netCDF object. The other HDF interfaces are currently being modified to allow
multi-file access, closer integration with the netCDF interface will probably
be delayed until the end of that project.
<p>Eventually, it will be possible to integrate netCDF objects with the rest of
the HDF tool suite. Such an integration will then allow tools written for netCDF
and tools written for HDF to both interact intelligently with the new data files.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="HDF-EOS" name="HDF-EOS">HDF-EOS to netCDF converter</a></h2>
<p>
The
Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (<a
href="http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov" >GES DISC</a>)
has developed an on-the-fly HDF-EOS to netCDF/CF converter
for the following products, making them easier to use in the <a
href="#IDV" >Unidata IDV</a> and <a
href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/software/v/" >McIDAS-V</a>:
<ul>
<li>AIRS Level 2 (scene) profiles of moisture, air temperature and
trace gases</li>
<li>AIRS Level 3 (global grid) profiles of moisture, air temperature and trace gases</li>
<li>OMI UV-B at the surface</li>
<li>TOMS ozone and aerosols</li>
</ul>
<p>
<a href="http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/services/NetCDFConversionforIDVandMcIDAS-V.shtml" >Instructions</a> are available for searching and converting these data.
More information on AIRS products is available at
<a href="http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/index.html"
>http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/index.html</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="HIPHOP" name="HIPHOP">HIPHOP</a></h2>
<a
href="http://www.knmi.nl/onderzk/atmosam/English/Service/hiphop/hiphop.html">HIPHOP</a>,
developed
by Dominik Brunner, is a widget based IDL application that largely facilitates
the visualization and analysis of 2D, 3D, and 4D atmospheric science data, in
particular atmospheric tracer distributions and meteorological fields.
<p>Graphical output of (atmospheric model) data can be quickly generated in a
large number of different ways, including horizontal maps at selected model
or pressure levels, vertical north-south, east-west, or slant cross-sections
(including zonal averages), time slices, animations, etc. It also allows mathematical
operations on the existing fields to generate new fields for further analysis,
and it can be run as a batch application.</p>
<p>The program handles data in netCDF, HDF and GRIB format. Interfaces to other
data formats (e.g. ASCII and binary data) can be added easily.</p>
<p>Beginning with Version 4.0, it also supports the ability to overlay meteorological
fields on a number of different satellite images, and to draw air parcel trajectories.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Hyperslab OPerator Suite (HOPS)"
name="Hyperslab OPerator Suite (HOPS)">Hyperslab OPerator Suite (HOPS)</a></h2>
Hyperslab OPerator Suite (<a
href="http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/gds/svn/hyperslab.html">HOPS</a>), developed by
R. Saravanan at NCAR, is a bilingual, multi-platform software package for processing
data in netCDF files conforming to the NCAR-CCM format or the NCAR Ocean Model
format. HOPS is implemented in <a href="#IDL">IDL</a>, the widely-used commercial
interpreted language, and also in <a
href="ftp://ftp-icf.llnl.gov/pub/Yorick/">Yorick</a>, a public-domain interpreted
language that is freely available from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The IDL version of HOPS should run on any platform supported by IDL. The Yorick
version too runs on most common UNIX platforms, such as Sun, SGI, Cray, and LINUX
computers.
<p>HOPS is not a monolithic program, but a suite of operators that act on data
units called &quot;hyperslabs&quot;. The design of HOPS is object-oriented,
rather than procedure-oriented; the operators treat the numeric data and the
associated meta-data (like coordinate information) as a single object.</p>
<p>Note that HOPS is not a general purpose netCDF utility and works only for the
NCAR CSM netCDF formats. For more information, check the <a href="http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/gds/svn/hyperslab.html">HOPS
home page</a>.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="iCDF" name="iCDF">iCDF (imports chromatographic netCDF data into MATLAB)</a></h2>
<p>
Klavs M. S&oslash;rensen, Thomas Skov and Rasmus Bro (Faculty of Life
Sciences, University of Copenhagen) have developed <a
href="http://www.models.life.ku.dk/source/iCDF/index.asp" >iCDF</a>, a
free and documented toolbox for importing chromatographic data in the
netCDF-based format that most manufacturers of chromatographic
software support.
</p>
<p>
The iCDF software is currently for XC-MS data (X: GC, LC, HPLC), but
soon it will be able to import data using other detectors as well. It
can be used to open netCDF files from many different instruments
(e.g. Agilent, Bruker) and many chromatographic software packages
(e.g. ChemStation).
</p>
<p>
For more information, see the paper
<blockquote>
Skov T and Bro R. (2008) Solving fundamental problems in chromatographic analysis
Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, 390 (1): 281-285.
</blockquote>
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="IDV" name="IDV">IDV (Integrated Data Viewer)</a></h2>
<p>
Unidata's <a href="/software/idv/"
>Integrated Data Viewer (IDV)</a> is a Java application (for Java 1.4
or later)
that can be used to display a variety of netCDF files, particularly
well formatted, geolocated datasets. Features include:
<ul>
<li>Access to local and remote netCDF files and a variety of <a
href="/software/idv/docs/userguide/data/DataSources.html" >other
data formats</a></li>
<li>Slicing and probing of multidimensional data</li>
<li>Support for netCDF conventions (CF, COARDS, NUWG, AWIPS)</li>
<li>InstallAnywhere installers for easy download and installation</li>
<li>Save display state to a bundle for easy recreation of views</li>
<li>Support for non-gridded data through the <a
href="/software/netcdf-java/CDM/" >Common Data Model (CDM)</a></li>
</ul>
The IDV uses the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/visad.html"
>VisAD Java library</a> for interactive and collaborative
visualization and analysis
and the <a href="/software/netcdf-java/" >netCDF Java library</a> for reading and manipulating
netCDF files.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Ingrid" name="Ingrid">Ingrid</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://ingrid.ldgo.columbia.edu/">Ingrid</a>, by M. Benno Blumenthal
&lt;benno@ldeo.columbia.edu&gt;, is designed to manipulate large datasets and
model input/output. It can read
data from its data catalog, a netCDF file, or a directly attached model, and output
the data, either by feeding it to a model, creating a netCDF file, or creating
plots and other representations of the data.
</p>
<p>Ingrid has a number of filters which allow simple data manipulations, such
as adding two datasets together, smoothing, averaging, and regridding to a new
coordinate. In addition to netCDF, it also reads HDF, CDF, VOGL,
and SGI GL.</p>
<p>Ingrid is currently running as a WWW daemon that can be accessed through <a
href="http://rainbow.ldgo.columbia.edu/datacatalog.html">http://rainbow.ldgo.columbia.edu/datacatalog.html</a>
to see some of its capabilities on a climate data catalog maintained by the
<a
href="http://rainbow.ldeo.columbia.edu/">Climate Group</a> of the <a href="http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/">Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory</a> of Columbia University. To quote the introduction:</p>
<blockquote>The Data Catalog is both a catalog and a library of datasets, i.e.
it both helps you figure out which data you want, and helps you work with the
data. The interface allows you to make plots, tables, and files from any dataset,
its subsets, or processed versions thereof.
<p>This data server is designed to make data accessible to people using WWW
clients (viewers) and to serve as a data resource for WWW documents. Since
most documents cannot use raw data, the server is able to deliver the data
in a variety of ways: as data files (netCDF and HDF), as tables (html), and
in a variety of plots (line, contour, color, vector) and plot formats (PostScript
and gif). Processing of the data, particularly averaging, can be requested
as well.</p>
<p>The Data Viewer in particular demonstrates the power of the Ingrid daemon.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ingrid currently runs on Linux, for which binaries are available.
CVS access to the current source can be arranged. </p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="IntelArrayVisualizer" name="IntelArrayVisualizer">
Intel Array Visualizer</a></h2>
<p> The <a
href="http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/compilers/226277.htm"
>Intel® Array Visualizer</a> and Intel® Array Viewer are available as
<a
href="http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/compilers/226277.htm"
>free downloads</a> for
Windows platforms. They offer an application and a set
of software tools and components, which include C, Fortran, and .Net libraries, for
developing scientific visualization applications and for creating interactive graphs of
array data in various formats, including HDF and netCDF.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="IVE" name="IVE">IVE</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.atmos.washington.edu/ive/">IVE (Interactive Visualization
Environment)</a> is a software package designed to interactively display and analyze
gridded data. IVE assumes the data to be displayed are contained in one- two-,
three- or four-dimensional arrays. By default, the numbers within these arrays
are assumed to represent grid point values of some field variable (such as pressure)
on a rectangular evenly spaced grid. IVE is, nevertheless, capable of displaying
data on arbitrary curvilinear grids.
</p>
<p>If the data points are not evenly spaced on a rectangular grid, IVE must be
informed of the grid structure, either by specifying &quot;attributes&quot;
in the data input or by specifying the coordinate transform in a user supplied
subroutine. Stretched rectangular grids (which occur when the stretching along
a given coordinate is a function only of the value of that coordinate) can be
accommodated by specifying one-dimensional arrays containing the grid-point
locations along the stretched coordinate as part of the IVE input data. Staggered
meshes can also be accommodated by setting &quot;attributes&quot; in the input
data. The structure of more complicated curvilinear grids must be communicated
to IVE via user supplied &quot;transforms,&quot; which define the mapping between
physical space and the array indices.</p>
<p>Since four-dimensional data cannot be directly displayed on a flat computer
screen, it is necessary to reduced the dimensionality of the data before it
is displayed. One of IVE&#39;s primary capabilities involves dimension reduction
or &quot;data slicing.&quot; IVE allows the user to display lower-dimensional
subsets of the data by fixing a coordinate or by averaging over the coordinate.</p>
<p>IVE currently has the capability to display</p>
<ul>
<li>scalar fields as
<ul>
<li>2D scalar plots</li>
<li>1D scalar plots</li>
<li>vertical soundings</li>
<li>a single point value</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>vector fields as 2D vector plots</li>
</ul>
<p>IVE lets you overlay plots, loop plots, and control a wide variety of display
parameters.</p>
<p>IVE also can perform algebraic computations on the gridded data and can calculate
derivatives. More complicated computations can be performed in user supplied
subroutines.</p>
<p>IVE uses NetCDF for the data input format, and uses the <a
href="http://ngwww.ucar.edu/ng/">NCAR Graphics Library</a> to produce graphical
output. IVE is <a
href="http://www.atmos.washington.edu/ive/getting.html">available</a> as source
via anonymous ftp; and as binary on request for licensees of NCAR graphics.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="JSON" name="JSON">JSON format with the ncdump-json utility</a></h2>
<p>
Josep Llodr&agrave; has developed a program to output the contents
of a netCDF-3 or netCDF-4 file in
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation).
It is based on Unidata's NCDUMP utility,
and it keeps the original ncdump functionality, unless the "-j" option
is used to specify JSON output.
</p>
<p>
The program and source are available from <a
href="https://github.com/jllodra/ncdump-json"
>https://github.com/jllodra/ncdump-json</a>
.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Java interface" name="Java interface">Java interface</a></h2>
<p> The <a href="/software/netcdf-java/"
>NetCDF-Java 4.2 Library</a> is a Java interface to netCDF files,
as well as to many other types of scientific data formats. It
is freely available and the source code is released under the
(MIT-style) netCDF C library license. Previous versions use the GNU
Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
</p>
<p>
The library implements a Common Data Model (<a
href="/software/netcdf-java/CDM/" >CDM</a>), a generalization
of the netCDF, OpenDAP and HDF5 data models. The library is a
prototype for the netCDF-4 project, which provides a C language API
for the "data access layer" of the CDM, on top of the HDF5 file
format. The NetCDF-Java library is a 100% Java framework for <em>reading</em> netCDF
and other file formats into the CDM, as well as <em>writing</em> to the
netCDF-3 file format.
The library also implements <a
href="http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/ncml/">NcML</a>,
which allows you to add metadata to CDM datasets, as well as to create
virtual datasets through aggregation. </p>
<h2><a id="KST" >Kst (2D plotting tool)</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://kst-plot.kde.org" >Kst</a> is an open-source, cross-platform 2D plotting tool focused on
performance and ease of use. Packages for Windows, various Linux
distributions and Mac OS X are <a
href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/kst/files/"
>available</a>,
as well as the complete
source code and CMake-based build files. A more detailed presentation
of Kst can be found on the web page at <a href="http://kst-plot.kde.org" >http://kst-plot.kde.org</a>,
including numerous screenshots and all the useful download links.
</p>
<p>
Kst is characterized by the following features:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Outstanding performance: curves with millions of points are no problem</li>
<li>Plotting of live streams</li>
<li>Out-of-the box support for a variety of formats (currently ASCII, netCDF, dirfile, Qimage-supported types, fits images)</li>
<li>User-friendly with a modern and consistent user interface</li>
<li>A set of unique tools to boost efficiency, including a data import wizard, capacity to edit multiple objects at once or the "Change Data File" tool to compare multiple experiments easily</li>
<li>An active community</li>
<li>Easily expandable for new data formats or data analysis algorithms thanks to a plugin-based architecture</li>
<li>Available on Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX</li>
</ul>
<h2><a id="Labview-API" >Labview interface</a></h2>
<p>
A netCDF Labview interface, implemented in the Labview programming
language is available. The software includes A graphical user
interface for editing netCDF data and
conversion to other data formats. The package was developed and is
maintained by L. F. Hwang of Sun Yat-sen University in China.
For more information
and to download the source code, see the <a
href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/netcdflabview/" >NetCDFLabview
web site</a>.
</p>
<h2><a id="MBDyn" name="MBDyn">MBDyn (MultiBody Dynamics)</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.aero.polimi.it/~mbdyn/" >MBDyn</a> is an open-source
MultiBody Dynamics analysis system
developed at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Aerospaziale of the
University "Politecnico di Milano", Italy. It uses netCDF as its
primary output format.
</p>
<p>
MBDyn features the
integrated multidisciplinary analysis of multibody, multiphysics
systems, including nonlinear mechanics of rigid and flexible
constrained bodies, smart materials, electric networks, active
control, hydraulic networks, essential fixed-wing and rotorcraft
aerodynamics. It allows users to simulate the behavior of heterogeneous
mechanical, aero-servo-elastic systems based on first principles
equations. It is being actively developed and used in the aerospace
and automotive fields for dynamics analysis and simulation of complex
systems. Dynamic linking of
user-defined modules is heavily exploited to let users extend the
feature library.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Max_diff_nc" name="MBDyn">Max_diff_nc</a></h2>
<p>
This is a program which compares two NetCDF files. Variables with the
same ID in the two files are assumed to be of the same type and have
the same shape. For each such couple of variables, the program
computes the maximum of the absolute value of the difference, and the
maximum of the absolute value of the relative difference. The program
also tells you at what location (the subscript list of the array) the
maximum difference is reached.
<p>The web page for this program is:
<a href="http://web.lmd.jussieu.fr/~lglmd/Max_diff_nc">http://web.lmd.jussieu.fr/~lglmd/Max_diff_nc</a>
<p>This is a freely available tool.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="MeteoExplorer" name="MeteoExplorer"></a>MeteoExplorer</h2>
<p> <a href="http://www.eastmodelsoft.com/index_en.htm"
>MeteoExplorer</a>, developed by Lianqing Yu at China Meteorological
Administration, is a cross-platform software application for analyzing
and rendering atmospheric science and geoscience data. It supports
popular data formats including WMO GRIB1/GRIB2, NetCDF, and MICAPS,
and provides basic GIS functionalities. Developed with C++, Meteo
Explorer targets multiple computing platforms including Microsoft
Windows, GNU Linux, and SGI IRIX operating systems. </p>
<p>
The primary features include:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Graphics layer management (navigation and animation)</li>
<li>Objective analysis of physical elements in surface or upperair soundings data</li>
<li>Isoline analysis and shading of grid field</li>
<li>Streamline analysis of wind field</li>
<li>Computation of physics elements</li>
<li>NetCDF data process and display</li>
<li>GRIB1/GRIB2 data process and display</li>
<li>MICAPS data process and display</li>
<li>Satellite nephogram data display and animation, support AWX, GPF and HDF format</li>
<li>Interactive composition of synoptic chart (command undo/redo, automatic save)</li>
<li>Map zoom, pan, projection and clipping</li>
<li>Full screen display and zoom to area</li>
<li>Quick navigation via thumbnail view of graphics layers</li>
<li>Save screen shot as image file (support formats: BMP, JPG, PNG)</li>
<li>Vector graphics exported to clipboard or saved as EMF file (Windows version only)</li>
<li>Remote desktop connection support</li>
<li>System configuration (dynamic menu)</li>
<li>Fast switch of user interface language on the fly</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more information, please visit <a
href="http://www.eastmodelsoft.com/software/mexplorer.htm"
>MeteoExplorer's home page</a> or contact the support staff via
meteoexplorer@hotmail.com .
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="MeteoInfo" name="MeteoInfo"></a>MeteoInfo</h2>
<p>
For better cross-platform support, <a
href="http://www.meteothinker.com" >MeteoInfo</a> has recently been re-developed
using Unidata's NetCDF Java library. MeteoInfo is GIS software for
visualization and analysis of spatial and meteorological data.
The Java edition can be run in Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and
Unix systems. The Groovy script engine was coupled
in the software, so users can write Groovy script to run the software
automatically for analysis with complex steps.
</p>
<p>
Download: <a href="http://www.meteothinker.com/" >http://www.meteothinker.com/</a>
</p>
<p>
Java 6 is needed to run the software.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="MexEPS" name="MexEPS">MexEPS</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/">PMEL</a> has developed a MATLAB interface,
<a
href="http://www.epic.noaa.gov/epic/software/mexeps.htm">MexEPS</a>, which supports
several netCDF file conventions, including <a
href="ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/netcdf/Conventions/PMEL-EPIC/"> those adopted
by PMEL</a>. Many styles of time axes are supported and time manipulation routines
ease the use of the time axis in MATLAB. The MexEPS package supports the following
data formats:
<ul>
<li>reading, writing and editing netCDF files;</li>
<li>reading and writing Classic EPIC files</li>
<li>reading formatted ASCII files</li>
</ul>
It includes:
<ul>
<li>VARIABLE, AXIS, ATTRIBUTE manipulation routines</li>
<li>TIME manipulation
<ul>
<li>TIME enters MATLAB as YYMMDDhhmmss.fff</li>
<li>Can be converted to netCDF udunits time convention (e.g. days <i>since</i>
1990-01-01 00:00:00)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="ftp://ftp.pmel.noaa.gov/eps/mexeps/help-m/">MATLAB help</a> and
<a
href="ftp://ftp.pmel.noaa.gov/eps/mexeps/examples/">example scripts</a> using
MexEPS</li>
<li><b>ASCII2MAT</b> mexFunction, which reads a formatted file into MATLAB as
a matrix</li>
</ul>
<p>The MexEPS package is freely available in PMEL&#39;s anonymous ftp directory
<a
href="ftp://ftp.pmel.noaa.gov/eps/mexeps/">ftp://ftp.pmel.noaa.gov/eps/mexeps/</a></p>
<p>If you have any questions or comments, please contact the author, Willa Zhu
<a
href="mailto:willa@pmel.noaa.gov">(willa@pmel.noaa.gov)</a> or Nancy Soreide (nns@pmel.noaa.gov).</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="MEXNC" name="MEXNC">MEXNC and SNCTOOLS</a></h2>
<p>
John Evans of Rutgers University maintains MEXNC and developed SNCTOOLS.
<a href="http://mexcdf.sourceforge.net/" >MEXNC</a> is a mexfile
interface to NetCDF files for MATLAB that has roughly a one-to-one
equivalence with the C API for netCDF. <a
href="http://mexcdf.sourceforge.net/tutorial/index.html"
>SNCTOOLS</a> is a set of
higher-level m-files that sit atop MEXNC, shielding the user from
such low level netCDF details as file IDs, variable IDs, and dimension
IDs. The general philosophy behind SNCTOOLS is providing the ability
to read and write data without trying to invent a new syntax.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Mirone" name="Mirone">Mirone (Windows MATLAB-based display)</a></h2>
<p>Joaquim Luis of Universidade do Algarve has developed
<a href="http://w3.ualg.pt/~jluis/mirone/">Mirone</a>,
a Windows MATLAB-based framework tool that
allows the display and manipulation of a large number of grid/images
formats through its interface with the <a
href="http://remotesensing.org/gdal/" >GDAL</a> library. Its main
purpose is to provide users with an easy-to-use graphical interface to
manipulate <a href="http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/" >GMT</a> grids. In
addition it offers a wide range of tools
dedicated to topics in the earth sciences, including tools for
multibeam mission planning, elastic deformation studies, tsunami
propagation modeling, earth magnetic field computations and magnetic
Parker inversions, Euler rotations and poles computations, plate
tectonic reconstructions, and seismicity and focal mechanism
plotting. The high quality mapping and cartographic capabilities for
which GMT is renowned is guaranteed through Mirone's ability to
automatically generate GMT cshell scripts and dos batch files.
</p>
<p>
Although Mirone is written in MATLAB, a stand-alone version to run
under Windows is also provided. Regrettably this version is not as
efficient as the native MATLAB code but provides a solution for users
that don't have MATLAB.
</p>
<p>
Also see <br>
J. F. Luis. Mirone: A multi-purpose tool for exploring grid
data. Computers & Geosciences, 33, 31-41, 2007.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="ncBrowse" name="ncBrowse">ncBrowse</a></h2>
<p>Donald Denbo of NOAA&#39;s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory has developed
and made available <a
href="http://www.epic.noaa.gov/java/ncBrowse">ncBrowse</a>, a Java application
(JDK1.2) that provides flexible, interactive graphical displays of data and attributes
from a wide range of netCDF data file conventions. Features include:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Designed to work with arbitrary netCDF files.</li>
<li>Browses file using the EPIC and COARDS conventions.</li>
<li>Provides a &quot;tree&quot; view of the netCDF file.</li>
<li>Handles character variables.</li>
<li>Handles dimensions without an associated variable.</li>
<li>Uses sgt graphics to perform 1 and 2 dimensional cuts through data.</li>
<li>Save to file single variable as a &quot;cdl&quot; text file.</li>
<li>InstallAnywhere scripts for UNIX, Win32, and MacOS.</li>
<li>Currently uses Java 2 and Swing.</li>
</ul>
<p>
ncBrowse will run on any UNIX or Windows machine with a Java 2 (JDK1.2) virtual
machine installed. Automated installation scripts are available for Windows and
UNIX. Additional information on ncBrowse and download instructions are available
at <a
href="http://www.epic.noaa.gov/java/ncBrowse">http://www.epic.noaa.gov/java/ncBrowse</a>.
</p>
<p>Questions and suggestions should be directed to &lt;<a
href="mailto:dwd@pmel.noaa.gov">dwd@pmel.noaa.gov&gt;</a>. If you have problems
reading a netCDF file with ncBrowse, please send him a copy of the file and
he&#39;ll get ncBrowse to read it!</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="nccmp" name="nccmp">nccmp</a></h2>
<p>
Remik Ziemlinski of the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory has
developed <a href="http://nccmp.sourceforge.net/" >nccmp</a>,
a tool to compare two netCDF files.
It can use MPI, include/exclude specific
variables or metadata and operates quickly.
Highly recommended for regression testing with large datasets.
See the Web site
<a href="http://nccmp.sourceforge.net/"
>http://nccmp.sourceforge.net/</a> for more information.
<p></p>
<h2><a id="NCL" name="NCL">NCL</a></h2>
<p>
The <a href="http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/" >NCAR Command Language
(NCL)</a> is an intepreted programming
language for scientific data analysis and visualization developed and
maintained in
NCAR's <a href="http://www.cisl.ucar.edu/">Computational and Information Systems
Laboratory</a>.
</p>
<p>
NCL has many features common to modern programming languages,
including types, variables, operators, expressions, conditional
statements, loops, and functions and procedures. NCL also has
features that are not found in other programming languages, including
those that handle the manipulation of metadata, the configuration of
visualizations, the import of data from a variety of data formats, and
an algebra that supports array operations.
</p>
<p>
NCL has robust file input and output capabilities. It allows different
datasets of different formats (netCDF, netCDF-4 classic, HDF4, HDF4-EOS,
GRIB-1, and GRIB-2) to
be imported into one uniform and consistent data manipulation
environment, which internally is the netCDF data format. NCL doesn't
place any restrictions or conventions on the organization of input
netCDF files.
</p>
<p>
NCL comes with many useful built-in functions and procedures for
processing and manipulating data. There are over 600 functions and
procedures that include routines for use specifically with climate and
model data, empirical orthogonal functions, Fourier
coefficients, wavelets, singular value decomposition, 1-, 2-, and
3-dimensional interpolation, approximation, and regridding, and
computer analysis of scalar and vector global geophysical quantities.
</p>
<p>
The visualizations are publication-quality and highly customizable,
with hundreds of options available for tweaking the looks of your
graphics. NCL can generate contours, XY plots, vectors, streamlines,
and can overlay these plots on many different map projections. There
are also specialized functions for generating histograms, wind roses,
meteograms, skew-T plots, weather maps.
</p>
<p>Included with the software are two command line tools:
"ncl_convert2nc" for converting GRIB-1/2 or HDF files to netCDF
files, and "ncl_filedump" which will dump the contents of a file
format that NCL recognizes (netCDF, GRIB-1/2, HDF, etc).</p>
<p>
NCL is available under an open source license or in binary form for
several popular UNIX platforms, including (but not limited to) Linux,
MacOSX, and Windows/Cygwin.
</p>
<p>
Documentation and additional information on NCL are available from the
<a href="http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/">NCL website</a>, which contains
hundreds of <a
href="http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/">application examples</a>
for one to download. You can also contact Mary Haley, at <a
href="mailto:haley@ucar.edu">haley@ucar.edu</a> for more information.
<p></p>
<h2><a id="NCO" name="NCO">NCO</a></h2>
<a href="http://nco.sourceforge.net">NCO</a> (netCDF operators) is a package of
command line operators that work on generic netCDF or HDF4 files:
<ul>
<li>ncap2 - arithmetic processor</li>
<li>ncatted - attribute editor</li>
<li>ncbo - binary operator</li>
<li>ncdiff - differencer</li>
<li>ncea - ensemble averager</li>
<li>ncecat - ensemble concatenator</li>
<li>ncflint - file interpolator</li>
<li>ncks - kitchen sink (extract, cut, paste, print data)</li>
<li>ncpdq - permute dimensions quickly</li>
<li>ncra - running averager</li>
<li>ncrcat - record concatenator</li>
<li>ncrename - renamer</li>
<li>ncwa - weighted averager</li>
</ul>
<p>All operators may now be <a href="http://www.opendap.org">OPeNDAP</a> clients. OPeNDAP enables
network transparent data access to any OPeNDAP server. Thus OPeNDAP-enabled NCO can
operate on remote files accessible through any OPeNDAP server without transferring
the files. Only the required data (e.g., the variable or hyperslab specified)
are transferred.</p>
<p>The source code is freely available from the <a
href="http://nco.sourceforge.net/">NCO home page</a>, as is the NCO User&#39;s
Guide.</p>
<p>For more information, contact the author, Charlie Zender.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="ncregrid" name="ncregrid">ncregrid</a></h2>
<p> Patrick J&ouml;ckel of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry has developed <strong>ncregrid</strong>,
a tool (written in FORTRAN-90) for data transfer of gridded 2- and 3-dimensional
(spatial) geophysical/geochemical scalar fields between grids of different resolutions.
The algorithm handles data on rectangular latitude/longitude grids (not necessarily
evenly spaced) and vertical pressure hybrid grids of arbitrary resolution. The
input/output data format is netCDF. ncregrid is freely available without any
warranty under the GNU public license (GPL). ncregrid can be used as a "stand-alone"
program, and/or linked as an interface to a model, in order to re-grid automatically
the input from an arbitrary grid space onto the required grid resolution. </p>
<p> More information is available on the web-page: <a href="http://www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/~joeckel/ncregrid/index.html" >
http://www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/~joeckel/ncregrid/index.html</a>. </p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="nctoolbox" name="nctoolbox">nctoolbox (a MATLAB common data model interface)</a></h2>
<p><a
href="http://nctoolbox.github.io/nctoolbox/" >nctoolbox</a> is a MATLAB
interface that provides read-only access to <a
href="/software/netcdf-java/CDM/index.html" >Common Data Model</a>
datasets.
Under the hood, nctoolbox uses Unidata's NetCDF-Java as the data access layer.
This allows nctoolbox to access to netCDF, OPeNDAP, HDF5, GRIB, GRIB2, HDF4,
and many (15+) other file formats and services using the same API.
It works with MATLAB 2008a and later. The nctoolbox software was
developed by Brian Schlining (MBARI), Rich Signell
(USGS), Sachin Kumar Bhate (freelance), and Alex Crosby (RPS/ASA).</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="ncdx" name="ncdx">ncdx</a></h2>
<p> Patrick J&ouml;ckel of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry has developed <strong>ncdx</strong>,
a tool (written in FORTRAN-90) that scans a netCDF file and makes it <a href="#OpenDX" >OpenDX</a>
compliant. ncdx is freely available without any warranty under the GNU public
license (GPL). More information is available on the web-page: <a href="http://www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/~joeckel/ncdx/index.html" >
http://www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/~joeckel/ncdx/index.html</a>. </p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="ncensemble" name="ncensemble">ncensemble</a></h2>
<p> Alan Iwi, of Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, offers this command
line ensemble statistics utility. More information is available on
the web-page: <a href="http://home.badc.rl.ac.uk/iwi/ncensemble/" >
http://home.badc.rl.ac.uk/iwi/ncensemble/</a>. </p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="ncview" name="ncview">ncview</a></h2>
<a
href="http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/ncview_home_page.html">Ncview</a> is a visual
browser for netCDF files. Typically you would use ncview to get a quick and easy,
push-button look at your netCDF files. You can view simple movies of the data,
view along various dimensions, take a look at the actual data values, change color
maps, invert the data, etc. It runs on UNIX platforms under X11, R4 or higher.
For more information, check out the <a
href="http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/docs/ncview.README">README</a> file; you
can also see a representative <a
href="http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/docs/ncview.gif">screen image</a> (GIF,
66K) of ncview in action.
<p>The source may be downloaded from <a
href="ftp://cirrus.ucsd.edu/pub/ncview/">ftp://cirrus.ucsd.edu/pub/ncview/</a>.
For more information, please contact the author, David W. Pierce at <a href="mailto:dpierce@ucsd.edu">dpierce@ucsd.edu</a>.</p>
<h2><a id="NC4ML5" name="NC4ML5">NetCDF Toolbox for MATLAB-5</a></h2>
The <a
href="http://mexcdf.sourceforge.net/">NetCDF Toolbox for
MATLAB-5</a>, originally developed by Charles R. Denham, combined netCDF-3 with <a
href="http://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab/">MATLAB</a> to form an interface that
used MATLAB operator-syntax for arithmetic, logical, and subscripting operations
on netCDF entities. The NetCDF Toolbox is in bug-fix-only mode, and is
maintained by John.G.Evans.NE@gmail.com,
on the <a href="http://mexcdf.sf.net" > MEXNC, SNCTOOLS, and the
NetCDF Toolbox</a> web page.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="ncvtk" name="ncvtk">ncvtk</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://ncvtk.sourceforge.net/" >Ncvtk</a> is a program for
exploring planetary data stored in a NetCDF file.
The NetCDF file should loosely follow the <a
href="http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/eaton/cf-metadata/" >CF metadata
conventions</a>.
</p>
<p>
Ncvtk was designed from the ground up with the aim of offering a high
degree of interactivity to scientists who have a need to explore
structured, three-dimensional, time-dependent climate data on the
sphere. A graphical user interface allows users to interact with their
data via color/transparency/contour/vector plots, apply vertical slices,
probe data, apply an external sun light, overlay hydrographic and
geopolitical data, rotate, zoom, etc. with minimal fuss.
</p>
<p>
Ncvtk is written in python and is based on the <a
href="http://public.kitware.com/VTK/" >Visualization Toolkit
(VTK)</a>. Like python and VTK, Ncvtk is
highly portable and known to run on Windows and Linux (i386, ia64,
EMT64) platforms. More information about Ncvtk is available at <a
href="http://ncvtk.sourceforge.net"
>http://ncvtk.sourceforge.net</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="netcdf_tools" name="netcdf_tools">Ivan Shmakov's netcdf tools</a></h2>
<p>
The NetCDF tools is a free software package consisting of a few
tools operating on NetCDF and, by utilizing the compatibility API,
HDF4 files, which are intended to be usable from Shell scripts.
</p>
<p>
The currently packaged tools are:
</p>
<ul>
<li>a couple of simple shell wrappers over the respective NetCDF
functions (ncattget and ncattput);
</li>
<li>a more sophisticated ncget tool.</li>
</ul>
<p>
The ncget tool implements functionalilty that is similar to hdp
dumpsds (for NetCDF, which lacks such a tool), or complements it in
the case of HDF4. It can be seen as a complement to the ncdump tool
(included in both the NetCDF and HDF4 distributions) as well.
</p>
<p>
This tool allows a selected part of a NetCDF variable or an HDF4
scientific data set (SDS) to be extracted in either an ASCII or
binary form, applying the transformation specified by the usual
scale_factor and add_offset attributes. It allows one to feed the
data contained in NetCDF variables (or HDF4 SDS) to the tools
designed to operate on either ASCII (text) or raw (binary) data.
</p>
<p>
This version of the package is the first one to be announced to the
public. It has some known bugs and limitations, but it's proved to
be quite usable. A <a
href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/netcdf-tools" >project page</a> on
freshmeat.net. The <a
href="http://waterlily.siamics.net/~ivan/src/netcdf-tools-0.1-rc1.tar.gz"
>source</a> is also available.
</p>
<h2><a id="netcdf4excel" name="netcdf4excel">netcdf4excel (add-in for MS Excel)</a></h2>
<p>
Alexander Bruhns <bruhns@free.fr> has developed <a
href="http://code.google.com/p/netcdf4excel/" >a netCDF add-in written in
Visual Basic for MS Excel</a>. This add-in simplifies the use of
NetCDF data in Excel, providing a ready to use solution for
manipulating this type of data.
</p>
<p>
For developers, the open-source (GPL V3 license) can be downloaded
directly or checked out with Mercurial.
</p>
<p>
The add-in is written in VBA 6.0 (so it won't work with Office 2010 64 bits) and is designed for Excel 2007 running with the Microsoft Windows operating system.
It supports opening netCDF classic format data with Excel for read or
write access.
</p>
<p>More details are available on the <a
href="http://code.google.com/p/netcdf4excel/" >netcdf4excel web
site</a>.</p>
<p>
</p>
<h2><a id="netcdf95" name="netcdf95">NetCDF95 alternative Fortran API</a></h2>
<p> Lionel Guez has developed and made feely available <a
href="http://web.lmd.jussieu.fr/~lglmd/NetCDF95" >NetCDF95</a>, a new
alternative Fortran interface to the NetCDF library. Compared to the
Unidata-provided Fortran 90 netCDF interface, the NetCDF95 interface
is meant to be easier to use and more secure.
</p>
<h2><a id="WCT" name="WCT">NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit (WCT)</a></h2>
<p>The NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit (WCT) is built on the netCDF-for-Java API,
and can read NetCDF-3 and 4. It is available from <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/wct/">http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/wct/</a>.
<h2><a id="Objective-C" name="Objective-C">Objective-C API</a></h2>
<p>Tom Moore has an Objective-C API, available here:
<a href="http://www.paleoterra.com/software" >www.paleoterra.com/software</a>.
The netCDF Framework is an open source (Argonne Open Source License)
MacOSX application framework that provides an Objective-C interface
to the NCAR netCDF library version 3. The framework is available
both as source code and universal compiles (works on both PPC and
Intel macs). The source code has also been compiled by users for the
GNUStep environment. Version 2 of the framework will provide
classes for accessing multiple netCDF files, working with in-memory
data slabs using standard notation, and some support for
multithreading.
<h3>Mark Tracy's Objective-C API</h3>
<p>Mark Tracy has written <a href="http://www.mt-se.com/nc_1.html"
>NetcdfStep</a>, an Objective-C
API for netCDF that uses Objective-C Foundation Classes.
<p>
NetcdfStep is framework for using the netCDF library in
object-oriented programming with Objective-C. It now
supports the full functionality of netCDF 3.6.2.
</p>
<p>
A <a
href="http://www.mt-se.com/pub/NetcdfStep-1.0.2.zip" >
complete Mac OS X distribution</a> including pre-built static library and <a
href="http://www.mt-se.com/netcdfstep_doc/" >online documentation</a>
are available. Applications linked to this framework have no external
dependencies (other than Mac OS X itself).
A <a href="http://www.mt-se.com/pub/NetcdfStep-GNUstep-0.6.1.tar.gz" >
source-code only distribution</a> synced up to version 0.6.1 is
available for GNUstep for use on
Linux and other Unix platforms.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="NCMEX" name="NCMEX">Octave interface</a></h2>
<p>
The ARM Program has contributed NCMEX for Octave, a port of Chuck
Denham's MATLAB NCMEX to <a href="http://www.octave.org" >Octave</a>. The
calling syntax
is identical, so scripts using NCMEX in MATLAB should in theory be
portable to Octave. In order to build NCMEX, a compiled C NetCDF
library must already be installed.
</p>
<p>
In addition to the base NetCDF library interface, this package includes a
simple toolbox to automate the reading and writing of NetCDf files
within Octave using NCMEX. These tools as well as the source for
NCMEX are available from <a
href="http://engineering.arm.gov/~sbeus/octavex/octavex.tar" >
http://engineering.arm.gov/~sbeus/octavex/octavex.tar</a>
(NOTE: this .tar file contains other
Octave extension functions besides NCMEX.)
</p>
<p>
Also see <a href="http://ocgmod1.marine.usf.edu/octcdf/" >Octcdf</a>,
a netCDF toolbox for Octave.
</p>
<p>
For installation instructions, see the README file inside the .tar file.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Octave" name="Octave">Octave interface (Barth)</a></h2>
<p>Alexander Barth has contributed the following:</p>
<p>
Octcdf is a netCDF toolbox for <a
href="http://www.octave.org/">Octave</a> which uses the same operator
syntax as the <a
href="http://mexcdf.sourceforge.net/netcdf_toolbox.html">matlab netCDF
toolbox</a> of Charles R. Denham. NetCDF dimensions, attributes and
variables are Octave objects and can be accessed, sliced and changed
just as regular variables. Unlike most netCDF toolboxes for matlab, it
does not depend on the NCMEX wrapper around the netCDF interface. This
octave toolbox is written in C++ calling directly the netCDF library.
The octcdf toolbox can also be used to download data from an OpenDAP
server. The octcdf source code is available at <a
href="http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/mediawiki/index.php/NetCDF_toolbox_for_Octave">
http://modb.oce.ulg.ac.be/mediawiki/index.php/NetCDF_toolbox_for_Octave</a>.
It was also included in the Octave Repository <a
href="http://octave.sourceforge.net/">octave-forge</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="OPeNDAP" name="OPeNDAP">OPeNDAP (formerly DODS)</a></h2>
<p>The <a href="http://opendap.org/">OPeNDAP</a> (formerly known as
DODS) is an Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol
that makes local data and subsets of local data accessible to remote
locations independent of the local storage format. OPeNDAP also
provides tools for transforming existing applications into OPeNDAP
clients, enabling them to remotely access OPeNDAP served data.
OPeNDAP is based on existing data access tools; rather than developing
a self contained system, it makes extensive use of existing data
access APIs. </p>
<p>OPeNDAP can be used to make netCDF data files available over the
Internet and it can also be used to adapt existing software which use
the netCDF API (by re-linking) to read data served by an OPeNDAP data
server. In principle, any program written using netCDF can be adapted
to read data from an OPeNDAP server - in other words any program
which uses netCDF can become a client in the OPeNDAP client-server
system. Included in the source and binary distributions are two freely
available programs that have already been modified (re-linked).</p>
<p>With a client program accessing data from a netCDF server, it is
possible to access a small subset of a large dataset over the Internet
without copying the entire dataset (as you would have to do with FTP
or AFS). The client can see changes to the netCDF dataset, e.g. when
new records are added (which would not be possible with FTP). Finally,
the client can also access cross-sections of variable data without
paging large amounts of data across the network (as you would have to
do with NFS, for example).</p>
<p>OPeNDAP software is freely available in both
source form or binary form for selected platforms.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="OpenDX" name="OpenDX">OpenDX</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.opendx.org/about.html">OpenDX</a> (formerly IBM Data Explorer,
also known as simply DX) is a general-purpose software package for data visualization
and analysis. It employs a data-flow driven client-server execution model and
provides a graphical program editor that allows the user to create a visualization
using a point and click interface.
<p>DX runs on 7 major UNIX platforms as well as Windows 95/NT and is designed
to take full advantage of multi-processor systems from IBM, SGI and Sun.</p>
<p>DX is built upon an internal data model, which describes and provides uniform
access services for any data brought into, generated by, or exported from the
software. This data model supports a number of different classes of scientific
data, which can be described by their shape (size and number of dimensions),
rank (e.g., scalar, vector, tensor), type (float, integer, byte, etc. or real,
complex, quaternion), where the data are located in space (positions), how the
locations are related to each other (connections), aggregates or groups (e.g.,
hierarchies, series, composites, multizone grids, etc.). It also supports those
entities required for graphics and imaging operations within the context of
Data Explorer. Regular and irregular, deformed or curvilinear, structured and
unstructured data as well as &quot;missing&quot; or invalid data are supported.</p>
<p>The details of the data model are hidden at the user level. As a result DX
operations or modules are polymorphic and appear typeless. The DX Import module,
which reads data for use within Data Explorer directly utilizes data in netCDF
as well as other formats (e.g., HDF, CDF). One or more variables may be selected
as well as step(s) of a time series. Data in conventional netCDFs are directly
imported. Since the DX data model is more comprehensive than the netCDF data
model, a methodology to extend netCDF via attribute conventions (e.g., for unstructured
meshes, non-scalar data and hierarchies) for use with Data Explorer is available.</p>
<p>DX supports a number of realization techniques for generating renderable geometry
from data. These include color and opacity mapping (e.g., for surface and volume
rendering), contours and isosurfaces, histograms, two-dimensional and three-dimensional
plotting, surface deformation, etc. for scalar data. For vector data, arrow
plots, streamlines, streaklines, etc. are provided. Realizations may be annotated
with ribbons, tubes, axes, glyphs, text and display of data locations, meshes
and boundaries. Data probing, picking, arbitrary surface and volume sampling,
and arbitrary cutting/mapping planes are supported.</p>
<p>DX supports a number of non-graphical functions such as point-wise mathematical
expressions (e.g., arithmetic, transcendental, boolean, type conversion, etc.),
univariate statistics and image processing (e.g., transformation, filter, warp,
edge detection, convolution, equalization, blending, morphological operations,
etc.). Field/vector operations such as divergence, gradient and curl, dot and
cross products, etc. are provided. Non-gridded or scattered data may be interpolated
to an arbitrary grid or triangulated, depending on the analysis requirements.
The length, area or volume of various geometries may also be computed. Tools
for data manipulation such as removal of data points, subsetting by position,
sub/supersampling, grid construction, mapping, interpolation, regridding, transposition,
etc. are available.</p>
<p>Tools for doing cartographic projections and registration as well as earth,
space and environmental sciences examples are available at Cornell University
via info.tc.cornell.edu. Also see the <a href="#ncdx" >ncdx</a> tool for making
netCDF files OpenDX compliant. </p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Panoply" name="Panoply">Panoply</a></h2>
<p> <a href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/" >Panoply</a>
is an application that plots geo-gridded and other arrays from netCDF,
HDF, GRIB, and other datasets. Features include:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Slice and plot geo-gridded latitude-longitude,
latitude-vertical, longitude-vertical, or
time-latitude arrays from larger multidimensional variables.</li>
<li>Two arrays may be combined in one plot by differencing, summing, or averaging.</li>
<li>Lon-lat data may be plotted as global maps (using any of over 75
map projections) or as zonal average plots.</li>
<li>Overlay continent outlines or masks on lon-lat plots.</li>
<li>Use your favorite CPT, GGR, PAL, or ACT color table for scale colorbar.</li>
<li>Save plots to disk in GIF, JPEG, PNG or TIFF bitmap images or as
PDF or PostScript graphics files.</li>
<li>Export lon-lat map plots in KMZ format.</li>
<li>Export animations as AVI or MOV video or as a collection of
invididual frame images.</li>
<li>Explore remote THREDDS and OpenDAP catalogs and open datasets served from them.</li>
</ul>
<p>
Panoply requires that your computer have a Java SE 6 runtime
environment, or better, installed.
</p>
<p>
Panoply is developed at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Questions
and suggestions should be directed to <a
href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/rschmunk.html" >Dr. Robert
B. Schmunk</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Parallel-NetCDF" name="Parallel-NetCDF">Parallel-NetCDF</a></h2>
<p>
A group of researchers at Northwestern University and Argonne National
Laboratory (Jianwei Li, Wei-keng Liao, Alok Choudhary, Robert Ross, Rajeev
Thakur, William Gropp, and Rob Latham) have designed and implemented a new
<a href="http://www.mcs.anl.gov/parallel-netcdf/" >
parallel interface for writing and reading netCDF data</a>, tailored for use on
high performance platforms with parallel I/O. The implementation builds on
the MPI-IO interface, providing portability to most platforms in use and
allowing users to leverage the many optimizations built into MPI-IO
implementations. Testing so far has been on Linux platforms with ROMIO and
IBM SP machines using IBM's MPI.
</p>
<p>
Documentation and code for Parallel-NetCDF is now available for
testing.
Although a few interfaces are not implemented yet, the current implementation
is complete enough to provide significant I/O performance improvements on
parallel platforms, as described in a <a
href="ftp://info.mcs.anl.gov/pub/tech_reports/reports/P1048.pdf"
>technical report</a>. Users are invited to test Parallel-NetCDF
in their applications.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Paraview" name="Paraview">Paraview and vtkCSCSNetCDF</a></h2>
<p><a href="http://www.paraview.org/">http://www.paraview.org/</a>
<p>ParaView is an application designed with the need to visualize large
data sets in mind. The goals of the ParaView project include the
following:
<ul>
<li>Develop an open-source, multi-platform visualization application.
<li>Support distributed computation models to process large data sets.
<li>Create an open, flexible, and intuitive user interface.
<li>Develop an extensible architecture based on open standards.
</ul>
<p>ParaView runs on distributed and shared memory parallel as well as
single processor systems and has been successfully tested on
Windows, Linux and various Unix workstations and clusters. Under the
hood, ParaView uses the Visualization Toolkit as the data processing
and rendering engine and has a user interface written using a unique
blend of Tcl/Tk and C++.
<p>A vtk/ParaView reader for netCDF files can be found <a
http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView/Users_Guide/List_of_readers#NetCDF_Reader">here</a>.
<h2><a id="Perl" name="Perl">Perl interfaces</a></h2>
There are two netCDF interfaces for Perl:
<ul>
<li> <a
href="http://search.cpan.org/~dhunt/PDL-NetCDF-4.05/netcdf.pd" > PDL::NetCDF</a>,
Doug Hunt's perl interface which uses the PDL (perl data language) extension.
</li>
<li> <a href="/software/netcdf-perl/" >NetCDFPerl</a>, Steve Emmerson's
extension module, based on version 2 of the netCDF package. Uses perl lists
for representing netCDF variables. </li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="PolyPaint+" name="PolyPaint+">PolyPaint+</a></h2>
<a
href="http://lasp.colorado.edu/polypaint/home.html">PolyPaint+</a> is an interactive
scientific visualization tool that displays complex structures within three-dimensional
data fields. It provides both color shaded-surface display and simple volumetric
rendering in either index or true color. For shaded surface rendering, the PolyPaint+
routines first compute the polygon set that describes a desired surface within
the 3D data volume. These polygons are then rendered as continuously shaded surfaces.
PolyPaint+ contains a wide variety of options that control lighting, viewing,
and shading. Objects rendered volumetrically may be viewed along with shaded surfaces.
Additional data sets can be overlaid on shaded surfaces by color coding the data
according to a specified color ramp. 3D visualizations can be viewed in stereo
for added depth perspective.
<p>Currently supported 3D visualizations are the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Shaded isosurface</li>
<li>Transparent contour shells or isosurfaces at varying levels</li>
<li>Volumetric or density plot</li>
<li>Planes</li>
<li>Contour ribbons</li>
<li>Topographic surface from 2D geographic data sets</li>
</ul>
<p>3D data volumes may be sliced in the X, Y, or Z plane using an interactive
cutting plane. A cross section of the data volume can be viewed in a 2D window
as a 2D contour plot, a vector plot, a raster image or a combination of these
options superimposed. Map outlines can be used as a background for 2D cross
section plots of geographic data. All data is projected according to the coordinates
specified by the user for the cross section window.</p>
<p>The user interface provides direct manipulation tools for specifying the eye
position, center of view, light sources, and color ramps. Subsetting of data
can be done easily by selecting the data by index or geographic coordinate.
On-line contextual help provides easy access to more detail about the software.
Tutorials which range from very simple visualizations to complex combinations
of data sets provide the user with a quick learning tool.</p>
<p>Currently PolyPaint+ accepts only data which is in the NetCDF file format.
A file conversion utility which converts from raw binary data to netCDf is a
part of the application.</p>
<p>PolyPaint+ is a joint effort of the University of Colorado and NCAR (National
Center for Atmospheric Research) funded by the NASA AISRP program. A beta version
of PolyPaint+ is currently available free of charge using FTP or for a nominal
fee which would cover tape distribution. A license agreement must be signed
in order to use it.</p>
<p>You may order by...</p>
<ul>
<li>TELEPHONE : 303-492-7289 (Margi Klemp) : 303-497-8159 (Bill Boyd)</li>
<li>U.S. MAIL :
<pre>
Margi Klemp
University of Colorado / LASP
1234 Innovation Dr.
Boulder, CO 80303
USA
</pre>
</li>
<li>E-MAIL : margi@aries.colorado.edu</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="pomegranate" name="Pomegranate">Pomegranate</a></h2>
<p>
The P9E Team at
NASA JPL has developed <a href="http://pomegranate.jpl.nasa.gov/"
>Pomegranate</a>, a python application that "webifies" science data files.
Supported formats include netCDF, HDF4, HDF5, GRIB and FITS.
</p><p>
Pomegranate can be installed on web servers as either a WSGI or CGI application
to provide webification (w10n) services. To learn more about w10n of
science data files, please visit
<a href="http://webification.org/">http://webification.org/</a>.
A brief <a href="http://pomegranate.jpl.nasa.gov/test/help.txt"
>help</a> document describes how to use the <a
href="http://pomegranate.jpl.nasa.gov/test" >demo directory</a> to
browse or download metadata or data in netCDF, JSON, or other
formats by clicking on data folder and document icons.
</p><p>
Pomegranate can also be used as a standalone library or command line application.
This greatly simplifies the retrieval of metadata and data
from files in supported formats.
</p>
<p>
Pomegranate is open source software and can be downloaded from
<a href="http://www.openchannelsoftware.com/projects/Pomegranate/" >
http://www.openchannelsoftware.com/projects/Pomegranate/</a>.
</p>
<h2><a id="PyNGL" name="PyNGL">PyNGL and PyNIO</a></h2>
<p>
NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory has developed
<a href="http://www.pyngl.ucar.edu/" >PyNGL</a>, a python package for
scientific visualization and data analysis and <a
href="http://www.pyngl.ucar.edu/Nio.shtml" >PyNIO</a>, a Python
package supporting access to a variety of data formats using an
interface modelled on netCDF.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Python" name="Python">Python interfaces</a></h2>
<p>
Python is an interpreted, object-oriented language that is supported on a wide
range of hardware and operating systems. Python information and sources can be
obtained from <a
href="http://www.python.org/">http://www.python.org/</a>. There are now
several netCDF interfaces for Python.
</p>
<p>
Jeff Whitaker of the NOAA Earth System Research Lab has developed a
netCDF-4 module for python:
<a
href="http://code.google.com/p/netcdf4-python/">
http://code.google.com/p/netcdf4-python/</a>. Most new features of
netCDF-4 are implemented, such as multiple unlimited dimensions,
groups and zlib data compression. All the new numeric data types (such
as 64-bit and unsigned integer types) are implemented. Compound and
variable length (vlen) data types are supported, but the enum and
opaque data types are not. Mixtures of compound and vlen data types
(compound types containing vlens, and vlens containing compound types)
are not supported.
</p>
<p>
<a href="#xray" >xray</a> is a higher-level interface that uses
netcdf4-python internally to implement a pandas-like package for N-D
labelled arrays for scientific data.
</p>
<p>
André Gosselin of the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne, Péches &amp; Océans Canada,
has implemented pycdf, a new Python interface to the netCDF library. It
is available from <a href="http://pysclint.sourceforge.net/pycdf/"
>http://pysclint.sourceforge.net/pycdf/</a>, where you will find the install
files, installation instructions, extensive documentation in text and html
format, and examples. pycdf requires the Numeric python package, and
installs through the simple "python setyp.py install" command.
</p>
<p>Bill Noon (noon@snow.cit.cornell.edu) has implemented another netCDF Python
module that allows easy creation, access, and browsing of netCDF data. The bindings
also use the <a
href="/software/udunits/">udunits library</a> to do unit conversions.
More information and source for Noon&#39;s Python netCDF module are available
from <a
href="http://snow.cit.cornell.edu/noon/ncmodule.html">http://snow.cit.cornell.edu/noon/ncmodule.html</a>.</p>
<p>The package from Konrad Hinsen has been integrated into his <a
href="https://sourcesup.cru.fr/projects/scientific-py/">ScientificPython</a>
package.</p>
<p> Dave Brown of NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory has developed <a
href="http://www.pyngl.ucar.edu/Nio.shtml" >PyNIO</a>, a Python
package that allows read and/or write access to a variety of data
formats using an interface modelled on netCDF. Currently supported
formats include netCDF, HDF4, GRIB1 and GRIB2 (read only), and HDF-EOS
2 Grid and Swath data (read only). </p>
<p>
Vicente Galiano of Miguel Hernandez University has developed a Python interface to
PnetCDF. This Python's package called "PyPnetCDF" allows access to NetCDF files using MPI and
the library pnetCDF developed by http://www.mcs.anl.gov/parallel-netcdf/.
The tools are very similar to Konrad Hinsen's NetCDF package to Python
but can read and write in a parallel way. For more information, see:
<a
href="http://www.pyacts.org/pypnetcdf">http://www.pyacts.org/pypnetcdf</a>.
</p>
<p>
<a id="pupynere" name="pupynere">Pupynere (PUre PYthon NEtcdf
REader)</a>
Roberto De Almeida has developed <a
href="http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pupynere/" >pupynere</a>, a PUre
PYthon NEtcdf REader that allows read-access to netCDF files using the
same syntax as the Scientific.IO.NetCDF Python module. Even though it's
written in Python, the module is up to 40% faster than
Scientific.IO.NetCDF and pynetcdf.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="R" name="R">R interface</a></h2>
<p> The R Project for Statistical Computing has developed <a
href="http://www.R-project.org/" > R</a>, a language and environment for statistical
computing and graphics. It provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical
techniques, including linear and nonlinear modelling, statistical tests, time
series analysis, classification, and clustering. </p>
<p> David Pierce has contributed the <a
href="http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ncdf4/index.html"
>ncdf4 package</a> for reading netCDF data into R and for creating new netCDF
dimensions, variables, and files, or manipulating existing netCDF
files from R. </p>
<p>
Pavel Michna has contributed another package, <a href="http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/RNetCDF/index.html" >RNetCDF</a>, that also provides access to netCDF data and to udunits
calendar functions from R.
</p>
<p> Robert Hijmans (with additional contributors) has created the <a
href="http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/raster/index.html"
>R raster package</a> for geographic data analysis and modeling. The
raster package can be used for reading, writing, manipulating,
analyzing and modeling gridded spatial data. The package is especially
useful for large datasets that don't fit into memory, because data is
processed in chunks. See <a
href="http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/raster/vignettes/Raster.pdf"
>Introduction to the 'raster' package</a> for more information.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="QGIS" name="QGIS">Quantum GIS (QGIS)</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.qgis.org/" >Quantum GIS</a> (QGIS) is an Open
Source Geographic Information System (GIS) licensed
under the GNU General Public License. QGIS is an official project of
the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). It runs on Linux, Unix,
Mac OSX, and Windows and supports numerous vector, raster, and
database formats and functionalities. QGIS supports a desktop,
browser, server, and client for viewing, editing, analysis,
serving, and accessing data. Its server complies with the OGC WMS 1.3 standard.
In addition to PostGIS and SpatiaLite formats, it can access data in vector
formats supported by the OGR library as well as most raster formats
supported by the GDAL library, including netCDF. For a more detailed list of
features of the QGIS desktop, browser, server, and client, see the
<a href="http://www.qgis.org/en/about-qgis/features.html" >QGIS features page</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Ruby" name="Ruby">Ruby interface</a></h2>
<p> A group at the Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere (RISH) of Kyoto
University has developed a <a
href="http://www.gfd-dennou.org/arch/ruby/products/ruby-netcdf/" >netCDF interface
for Ruby</a>, an interpreted, object-oriented scripting language. This interface
is intended to cover all the functionality of the C library for netCDF. Also
available are combination functions such as iterators (which offer abstract
ways to scan files and variables). Numeric arrays are handled by the "NArray"
multi-dimensional array class, which is becoming the de facto standard multi-dimensional
array for Ruby. See also the Ruby-based <a href="#Gfdnavi" >GPhys
software and Gfdnavi tool</a>
for accessing GRIB, GrADS, and netCDF data uniformly. </p>
<p> More information about Ruby is available from the <a href="http://www.ruby-lang.org/" >Ruby
web site</a>. </p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="SDS" name = "SDS">Scientific DataSet (SDS) Library</a></h2>
<p>
The <a href="http://sds.codeplex.com" >Scientific DataSet Library and
Tools project</a>, developed jointly by
Microsoft Research Cambridge and Moscow State University,
is aimed at manipulation and visualization of multidimensional data
sets.
</p>
<p>
Scientific DataSet (or SDS in short) is a .NET class library for
manipulating scientific data and their metadata. SDS provides a unified API
for convenient access to various data storages. Three types of storages are
supported by the first release: NetCDF files, CSV text files and volatile
in-memory datasets. SDS uses native NetCDF library built from version 4.0.1
both for 32 and 64-bit Windows platforms. New storage types can be added to
SDS infractructure as plugins. Support for accessing TIFF image files from
SDS as 2D arrays will be available soon as a separate CodePlex project.
</p>
<p>
Three applications are built on top of SDS:
</p>
<ul>
<li>sds command line utility. It allows users to examine data set schema,
copy data sets, modify their metadata.
</li>
<li>DataSetViewer application for visualization of data sets. DataSetViewer
is both a standalone application and Windows Presentation Foundation Control
that can be built into your applications. DataSetViewer has support for
interactive slicing of multidimensional data along any dimension.
</li>
<li>DataSetEditor add-in for Microsoft Office Excel. DataSetEditor provides
ability to view and modify the contents of any data set as Excel
worksheets.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
You can read the Getting Started document at
<a
href="http://sds.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?DownloadId=127282"
>
http://sds.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?DownloadId=127282
</a>
for a more detailed introduction to the Scientific DataSet
software. A Windows
Installation package for SDS binaries along with DataSet Viewer and DataSet
Editor are available also. You can also build core class libraries and
the sds utility under Mono. You may use, copy, and reproduce this
software for any non-commercial purpose. For further details see license at
<a href="http://sds.codeplex.com/license" >http://sds.codeplex.com/license</a>.
</p>
<p>
The SDS project is in beta phase and keeps evolving. You are welcome to
join discussions or report issues at the CodePlex site:
<a href="http://sds.codeplex.com" >http://sds.codeplex.com</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="SIS" name="SIS">Apache Spatial Information System (SIS)</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="https://builds.apache.org/job/sis-trunk/site/index.html"
>Apache Spatial Information System (SIS)</a> is a Java library for
developing geospatial applications. SIS enables representation of
coordinates for searching, data clustering, archiving, or any other
relevant spatial needs. The library is an implementation of GeoAPI 3.0
interfaces and can be used for desktop or server applications.
</p>
<p>
SIS provides data structures for geographic data and associated
metadata along with methods to manipulate those data structures. The
SIS metadata module forms the base of the library and enables the
creation of metadata objects which comply with the ISO 19115 metadata
model and which can be read from or written to ISO 19139 compliant XML
documents. The SIS referencing module will enable the construction of
geodetic data structures for geospatial referencing based on the ISO
19111 model such as axis, projection and coordinate reference system
definitions, along with the associated operations which enable the
mathematical conversion of coordinates between different systems of
reference. The SIS storage modules will provide a common approach to
the reading and writing of grid coverages applicable to simple imagery
and multidimensional data structures.
</p>
<p>
SIS supports creating ISO 19115 metadata from metadata in a netCDF
store from a given file, URL, stream, or NetcdfFile object. SIS
netCDF storage is intended to be a bridge between NetCDF Climate and
Forecast (CF) conventions and ISO 19115 metadata.
</p>
<p>
SIS is under developement as an Apache project. Release 0.3 is
currently available for download.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Tcl/Tk" name="Tcl/Tk">Tcl/Tk interfaces</a></h2>
<p> Dan Schmitt has developed <a
href="http://cnrit.tamu.edu/rsg/cdftcl/">cdftcl</a>, a <a
href="http://www.scriptics.com/">Tcl/Tk</a> interface for netCDF. It allows the
use of &quot;wildcards&quot; (*) or ranges (1-4) in the subscript notation,
and use of name references instead of variable IDs. Contact dan@computer.org
for more information.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Tcl-nap" name="Tcl-nap">Tcl-nap</a></h2>
<p> <a href="http://tcl-nap.sourceforge.net" >Tcl-nap</a> (n-dimensional array
processor) is a loadable extension of Tcl which provides a powerful and efficient
facility for processing data in the form of n-dimensional arrays. It has been
designed to provide an array-processing facility with much of the functionality
of languages such as <a href="http://www.acm.org/sigapl/" >APL</a>, Fortran-90,
<a href="#IDL" >IDL</a>, <a href="http://www.jsoftware.com/" >J</a>,
<a href="http://www.mathworks.com" >matlab</a>, and <a href="http://www.octave.org/" >octave</a>.
</p>
<p> Support is provided for data based on n-dimensional grids, where the dimensions
correspond to continuous spatial coordinates. There are interfaces to the HDF
and netCDF file formats commonly used for such data, especially in Earth sciences
such as Oceanography and Meteorology. </p>
<p> The internal data structure is called a NAO (n-dimensional array object) and
contains similar information to that of HDF SDSs and netCDF variables. </p>
<p> Tcl-nap was developed as part of the <a
href="http://www.dar.csiro.au/rs/avhrr_processing_software.htm" >CSIRO CAPS project</a>,
but can be loaded and used without the (satellite oriented) CAPS extension.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="VB" name="VB">Visual Basic and VB.net interfaces</a></h2>
<p>
Carsten Wieczorrek has developed code in VB 6 to export chromatographic
data into the netcdf/ANDI format.
The application writes netCDF files that can be read by
CHROMELEON, for example. For others interested in programming with
netcdf.dll from VB 6, see
Wieczorrek's web page on <a
href="http://www.mn-net.com/netcdf_vb6"
>netCDF and VB 6.0</a> and for VB.net, see <a
href="http://www.mn-net.com/netcdf_vbnet" >netCDF and VB.net</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="VisAD" name="VisAD">VisAD</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/visad.html">VisAD</a> is a Java class
library for interactive and collaborative visualization and analysis of numerical
data. It combines:
<ul>
<li>The use of pure Java for platform independence and to support data sharing
and real-time collaboration among geographically distributed users. Support
for distributed computing is integrated at the lowest levels of the system
using Java RMI distributed objects.</li>
<li>A general mathematical data model that can be adapted to virtually any numerical
data, that supports data sharing among different users, different data sources
and different scientific disciplines, and that provides transparent access
to data independent of storage format and location (i.e., memory, disk or
remote). The data model has been adapted to netCDF, FITS, HDF-EOS, McIDAS,
Vis5D, GIF and JPEG file formats.</li>
<li>A general display model that supports interactive 3-D, data fusion, multiple
data views, direct manipulation, collaboration, and virtual reality. The display
model has been adapted to Java3D and Java2D and used in an ImmersaDesk virtual
reality display.</li>
<li>Data analysis and computation integrated with visualization to support computational
steering and other complex interaction modes.</li>
<li>Support for two distinct communities: developers who create domain- specific
systems based on VisAD, and users of those domain-specific systems. VisAD
is designed to support a wide variety of user interfaces, ranging from simple
data browser applets to complex applications that allow groups of scientists
to collaboratively develop data analysis algorithms.</li>
<li>Developer extensibility in as many ways as possible.</li>
</ul>
VisAD was written by programmers at the <a
href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/vis.html">SSEC Visualization Project</a>
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison <a
href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/">Space Science and Engineering Center</a>, and
the <a href="/index.html">Unidata Program Center</a>.
<p></p>
<h2><a id="WebWinds" name="WebWinds">WebWinds</a></h2>
<p> <a href="http://www.openchannelsoftware.com/projects/WebWinds/">
WebWinds</a> is a free Java-based
science visualization and analysis package. In addition to several new analysis
tools, the current fourth version does automatic scripting. This allows
</p>
<ol>
<li> a user to rapidly and automatically create and store a session, either
for his own use, or for use by a collaborator on another machine;</li>
<li> a data provider to automatically create a specialized analysis environment
which can be downloaded (as a small script file) along with a dataset from
a Website; and</li>
<li> realtime collaboration or sharing of sessions over (even low-bandwidth)
networks, including the Internet.</li>
</ol>
<p>
This scripting requires no knowledge of the scripting language syntax. Several
sample script files are included with the distribution.
</p>
<p> In addition, this version contains a capability to geo-reference some data
and to read ASCII data in tabular format. Also new is the ability to output
data in numerical form (e.g. NetCDF) and a context sensitive, integrated help
system. </p>
<p> As with earlier versions, data in several different formats, including NetCDF,
can be read in easily from your local machine or from the Web. In addition,
most data can be subset or subsampled on load, making it possible to visualize
very large multidimensional and/or multispectral datasets. The package includes
several step-by-step examples. Installation of the software (including Java)
on the PC or Mac is a process requiring one file to be downloaded and opened.
If you need help getting started, a remote tutorial is available once you've
downloaded the package. </p>
<p> WebWinds is `point and click' rather than language driven and it runs well
on Unix, Windows (95/98/NT) and Mac platforms. It currently requires JDK 1.1.
To download a copy of this release, go to <a href="http://www.sci-conservices.com/rel4/webpage/wwhome.html"
>http://www.sci-conservices.com/rel4/webpage/wwhome.html</a> </p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="xray" name="xray">xray (Python N-D labelled arrays)</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://xray.readthedocs.org/en/stable/index.html" >xray</a>
is an open source project and Python package that aims to bring the
labeled data power of <a href="http://pandas.pydata.org/" >pandas</a>
to the physical sciences, by providing N-dimensional variants of the
core pandas data structures, Series and DataFrame: the xray DataArray
and Dataset.
</p>
<p>
xray adopts the <a
href="http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/thredds/current/netcdf-java/CDM"
>Common Data Model</a> for self-describing scientific data in
widespread use in the Earth sciences (e.g., netCDF and OPeNDAP):
xray.Dataset is an in-memory representation of a netCDF file.
</p>
<p>xray is being developed by Stephan Hoyer, Alex Kleeman, and <a
href="https://github.com/xray/xray/graphs/contributors" >other
contributors</a>.
</p>
<h2><a id="Zebra" name="Zebra">Zebra</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.atd.ucar.edu/rdp/zebra.html">Zebra</a> (formerly named Zeb)
is a system for data ingest, storage, integration and display, designed to operate
in both real time and postprocessing modes. Zebra was developed by Jonathan Corbet
and others in NCAR&#39;s <a
href="http://www.atd.ucar.edu/rdp/rdp_home.html">Research Data Program</a>.
<p>Zebra&#39;s primary use is for the superpositioning of observational data sets
(such as those collected by satellite, radar, mesonet and aircraft) and analysis
products (such as model results, dual-Doppler synthesis or algorithm output).
Data may be overlaid on a variety of display types, including constant altitude
planes, vertical cross-sections, X-Y graphs, Skew-T plots and time-height profiles.
The fields for display, color tables, contour intervals and various other display
options are defined using an icon based user-interface. This highly flexible
system allows scientific investigators to interactively superimpose and highlight
diverse data sets; thus aiding data interpretation.</p>
<p>Data handling capabilities permit external analysis programs to be easily linked
with display and data storage processes. The data store accepts incoming data,
stores it on disk, and makes it available to processes which need it. An application
library is available for data handling. The library functions allow data storage,
retrieval and queries using a single applications interface, regardless of the
data&#39;s source and organization. NetCDF data that conforms to Zebra conventions
is supported by this interface.</p>
<p>Zebra is currently available to the university research community through the
NCAR/ATD Research Data Program. Email requests to rdp-support@atd.ucar.edu.
More information is on the web page http://www.atd.ucar.edu/rdp/zebra.html.</p>
<hr />
<h1><a id="user" name="user">User-Contributed Software</a></h1>
<p>
Unidata makes available a separate
<a href="/software/netcdf/Contrib.html">catalog</a>
to a
<a href="ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/netcdf/contrib/">directory</a>
of freely available, user-contributed software and documentation related to the
netCDF library. This software may be retrieved by anonymous FTP. We haven&#39;t
necessarily used or tested this software; we make it available &quot;as is&quot;.
</p>
<p>The criteria for inclusion in the netcdf/contrib/ directory of user-contributed
software are:</p>
<p></p>
<ul>
<li>General usefulness to a significant part of the netCDF community</li>
<li>Small size</li>
<li>Infrequent need for updates</li>
<li>Free availability</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h1 id="commercial">Commercial or Licensed Packages</h1>
<h2><a id="ViewNcDap" name="ViewNcDap">ASA ViewNcDap</a></h2>
<p>
Applied Science Associates, Inc. has made the ASA View NC/Dap
application freely available for <a
href="http://www.asascience.com/downloads" >download</a>. ViewNcDap
is a stand-alone research-based tool (with included demonstration
data) that allows a user to visualize four dimensional NetCDF and
OPeNDAP data. ViewNcDap is a Windows application that includes
temporal/time step functionality for viewing animations of data that
include temporal information. The application may be used to
visualize a variety of time-varying geospatial scientific data in a
simple map framework. It handles CF conventions and includes some
aliasing features that could permit additional formats to be read.
It should not be considered a GIS system, but
is used to quickly preview a variety of data on a simple map. Data may
also be filtered and saved to a local netCDF file.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Avizo" name="Avizo">Avizo</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.avizo3d.com/" >Avizo</a> software is a powerful
tool for 3D data visualization and
analysis. It offers a comprehensive feature set that addresses
visualization, processing, analysis, communication and
presentation. <a href="http://www.vsg3d.com/vsg_prod_avizo_green.php"
>
Avizo Green Edition</a> includes an advanced set of
features dedicated to climate, oceanography, environmental or
earth-mapped data. It provides high-level support for the netCDF
format, a dedicated Earth visualization module, and a set of advanced
geographical projections applicable to a wide range of fast 2D and 3D
data representations.
</p>
<p>
For more information, see <a
href="http://www.avizo3d.com/" >www.avizo3d.com</a>.
</p>
<h2><a id="AVS" name="AVS">AVS</a></h2>
<a href="ftp://testavs.ncsc.org/avs/Info/WHAT_IS_AVS">AVS</a> (Application Visualization
System) is a visualization application software and development environment. An
AVS module has been written that allows multi-dimensional netCDF data sets to
read into AVS as uniform or rectilinear field files. The AVS user can point and
click to specify the name of the variable in the selected netCDF file, as well
as selecting the hyperslab. If 1D coordinate variables exist (a variable that
has the same name as a dimension) then the coordinate variable will be used to
specify the coordinates of resulting rectilinear field file. If no coordinate
variable exists, then the resulting field file will be uniform. Once in AVS, there
are hundreds of analysis and display modules available for image processing, isosurface
rendering, arbitrary slicing, alpha blending, streamline and vorticity calculation,
particle advection, etc. AVS runs on many different platforms (Stardent, DEC,
Cray, Convex, E and S, SET, Sun, IBM, SGI, HP, FPS and WaveTracer), and it has
a flexible data model capable of handling multidimensional data on non-Cartesian
grids.
<p>The module source code and documentation is available from the <a href="http://iac.ncsc.org/">International
AVS Center</a>, in the <a
href="ftp://testavs.ncsc.org/avs/AVS5/Module_Src/data_input/read_netcdf/"> ftp://testavs.ncsc.org/avs/AVS5/Module_Src/data_input/read_netcdf/</a>
directory.</p>
<p>See also the information on <a href="#DDI">DDI</a> for another way to use netCDF
data with AVS.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="BCS-UFI" name="BCS-UFI" >Barrodale UFI</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.barrodale.com" >Barrodale Computing Services
Ltd.</a> (BCS) has developed a product that addresses one of
the main objections heard from "technologists" (e.g., scientists,
engineers, and other researchers) who avoid using databases to manage
their data: "my very large data files are too
cumbersome/difficult/slow/costly to load into a database". In
addition to netCDF, these files come in a variety of formats (HDF5, GRIB,
NITFS, FITS, etc.).
</p>
<p>
This BCS product is called the <a
href="http://www.barrodale.com/bcs/universal-file-interface-ufi"
>Universal File Interface (UFI)</a>; it's a
database extension based on the IBM Informix Virtual Table Interface
(VTI). <em>(Please continue reading even if you don't have
Informix running on your system, because IBM has just made available, at
no charge, the <a
href="http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/innovator-c-edition/"
>Innovator-C Edition</a> of Informix.)</em> A demo that uses UFI to
access wind speeds can be seen <a
href="http://www.barrodale.com/bcs/universal-file-interface-animation"
>here</a>.
</p>
<p>
VTI is a technology that supports making external datasets appear as tables
to SQL queries and statements. UFI is a BCS database extension for
delivering the contents of external data files as though they were rows in
a database table. UFI makes a file look like a set of database tables, so
"UFI managed tables" are actually virtual database tables. Consequently,
users of UFI can perform SQL queries on their files without having to first
load them into a database.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id=></a></h2>
<h2><a id="DioVISTA/Storm" name="DioVISTA/Storm" >DioVISTA/Storm</a></h2>
<p> <a href="http://www.hitachi-power-solutions.com/products/product03/p03_61.html"
>DioVISTA/Storm</a> is a commercial software package that visualizes content
of netCDF files as a time series of grids, isosurfaces, and arrows on a 3D
virtual earth. Its user interface is similar to standard 3D earth
visualizing software. It displays OGC KML files, Shapefiles, and online
map resources through OGC Web Tile Map Services (WTMS). It supports CF
Conventions version 1.6 (lon-lat-alt-time axis and trajectory). Its first
version was released on Aug 5 2014.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Environmental WorkBench"
name="Environmental WorkBench">Environmental WorkBench</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.ssesco.com/">SuperComputer Systems Engineering and Services
Company</a> (SSESCO) has developed the <a
href="http://www.ssesco.com/files/ewb.html">Environmental WorkBench</a> (EWB),
an easy to use visualization and analysis application targeted at environmental
data. The EWB currently has numerous users in the fields of meteorological research,
air quality work, and groundwater remediation.
<p>EWB system features include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Random access file structure using the netCDF-based public domain MeRAF
file system with support for gridded, discrete (non-grid-based observation),
and particle types</li>
<li>Support for geo-referenced or Cartesian coordinate systems</li>
<li>Object oriented Graphical User Interface (GUI) that is very easy to use</li>
<li>Tools for converting model and observational data sets and data writers
to netCDF</li>
<li>Interactive rotation/translation of scenes in 3D space</li>
<li>Time sequencing controls to step forward/backward, animate sequentially,
or go to a chosen time step; including multiple asynchronous or non-uniform
time steps</li>
<li>Interactive slicers to select cross sections through 3D data sets</li>
<li>Display operators available on the slices, including
<ul>
<li>Contour lines with selectable contour levels</li>
<li>Color shading by data value with variable transparency level</li>
<li>Arrow and streamline representation for vector quantities</li>
<li>Positional reference lines at user selected intervals</li>
<li>Color coded shapes at each grid node</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Multiple 3D isosurfaces at selected parameters and values with variable
transparency</li>
<li>Display of particle positions with coloring by type, height, and source</li>
<li>Display of discrete data using colored spheres and labels for scalar data
and arrows for vectors (with arrowheads or meteorological style)</li>
<li>Multiple user definable color maps to which isosurface and colored field
shading may be separately assigned</li>
<li>On screen annotation for generation of report ready figures</li>
<li>Image export in any of the common image formats (gif, tiff, encapsulated
postscript, etc.)</li>
<li>Graceful handling of missing or bad data values by all the graphics rendering
routines</li>
<li>Automatic data synchronization to allow automatic screen updating as new
data arrives in real-time from a model or set of sensors</li>
<li>Two and three dimensional interpolation from scattered observations to a
grid, using the Natural Neighbor Method. This robust volume based method yields
results far superior to distance weighting schemes.</li>
</ul>
<p>Systems currently supported include Win95, WinNT, OS/2, IBM RS/6000, Silicon
Graphics, HP and SUN workstations.</p>
<p>SSESCO has implemented a meta-file layer on top of the netCDF library, called
MeRAF. It handles multiple netCDF files as well as automatic max-min calculations,
time-varying gridded, particle, and discrete data, logical groupings for discrete
data, and an overall simplified and flexible interface for storing scientific
data. MeRAF is being used by the DOE at the Hanford-Meteorological Site for
observational data and will be used for their weather-modeling.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="ESRI" name="ESRI">ESRI</a></h2>
<p> <a href="http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/index.html" >ESRI
ArcGIS</a> version 9.2 and later support <a
href="http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.2/index.cfm?TopicName=An_overview_of_data_support_in_ArcGIS"
>accessing netCDF time-based and multidimensional data</a> that
follows CF or COARDS conventions for associating spatial locations
with data. A selected slice of netCDF data may be displayed in ArcGIS
as a raster layer, feature layer, or table. You can also drag a
netCDF file from Windows Explorer and drop it in an ESRI application
such as ArcMap. </p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="FME">FME</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.safe.com/fme">FME</a>, developed by <a
href="http://www.safe.com">Safe Software Inc.</a>, is a tool for transforming
data for exchange between over <a href="http://www.safe.com/fme/format-search/">300
different formats and models</a>, including netCDF. FME's
read and write support for netCDF allows users to
move data into the netCDF common standard, regardless
of its source, and conversely enables end-users to consume netCDF
data for use in their preferred systems. For more information visit <a
href="http://www.safe.com/fme">http://www.safe.com/fme</a>.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="HDF-Explorer" name="HDF-Explorer">HDF Explorer</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.space-research.org/" >HDF Explorer</a>
is a data visualization program that reads the HDF, HDF5
and netCDF data file formats (including netCDF classic format data).
HDF Explorer runs in the Microsoft
Windows operating systems.
</p>
<p>
HDF Explorer offers a simple yet powerful interface for the
visualization of HDF and netCDF data. The data is just a click of the mouse
away. Data is first viewed in a tree-like interface, and then
optionally loaded and visualized in a variety of ways.
HDF Explorer features include fast access to data, grid, scalar and
vector views. It also allows exporting your data either as an ASCII
text file or a bitmap image.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="IDL" name="IDL">IDL Interface</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.exelisvis.com/ProductsServices/IDL.aspx">IDL</a> (Interactive Data Language)
is a scientific computing environment, developed and supported by <a
href="http://www.exelisvis.com/" >Excelis Visual Information
Solutions</a>, that combines mathematics, advanced data
visualization, scientific graphics, and a graphical user interface toolkit to
analyze and visualize scientific data. Designed for use by scientists and scientific
application developers, IDL&#39;s array-oriented, fourth-generation programming
language allows you to prototype and develop complete applications. IDL now supports
data in netCDF format.
<p>As an example, here is how to read data from a netCDF variable named GP in
a file named &quot;data/aprin.nc&quot; into an IDL variable named gp using the
IDL language:</p>
<p></p>
<pre>
id = ncdf_open(&#39;data/april.nc&#39;)
ncdf_varget,id, ncdf_varid( id, &#39;GP&#39;), gp
</pre>
Now you can visualize the data in the gp variable in a large variety of ways and
use it in other computations in IDL. You can FTP a demo version of IDL, including
the netCDF interface, by following the instructions in pub/idl/README available
via anonymous FTP from gateway.rsinc.com or boulder.colorado.edu.
<p>Other software packages that use or interoperate with IDL to access netCDF
data includes <a href="#ARGOS">ARGOS</a>, <a
href="#CIDS Tools">CIDS Tools</a>, <a href="#DDI">DDI</a>, <a
href="#HIPHOP">HIPHOP</a>, <a
href="Hyperslab OPerator Suite (HOPS)">Hyperslab OPerator Suite (HOPS)</a>, and
<a href="Noesys">Noesys</a>.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="InterFormat" name="InterFormat">InterFormat</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.radio-logic.com/">InterFormat</a> is a medical image format
conversion program with both Motif and character interfaces. InterFormat can automatically
identify and convert most popular medical image formats and write output files
in many standard medical image formats, or in formats such as netCDF that are
suitable for input to leading scientific visualization packages. InterFormat runs
on UNIX workstations; a version for OpenVMS is also available. A separate external
module for <a
href="#OpenDX">IBM Data Explorer</a> is available for use in IBM Data Explorer&#39;s
Visual Program Editor.
<p>For more details about the formats handled, program features, and pricing,
see the Radio-Logic web site at <a
href="http://www.radio-logic.com">&lt;http://www.radio-logic.com&gt;</a>.</p>
<h2><a id="IRIS Explorer Module" name="IRIS Explorer Module">IRIS Explorer Module</a></h2>
<p>
The Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Group at the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications (NCSA) and the Mesoscale Dynamics and Precipitation Branch at NASA-Goddard
Space Flight Center have developed the NCSA PATHFINDER module set for <a
href="http://www.nag.co.uk:70/1h/Welcome_IEC">IRIS Explorer</a>. Two of the modules,
<a
href="http://redrock.ncsa.uiuc.edu/PATHFINDER/pathrel2/explorer/ReadDFG/ReadDFG.html">
ReadDFG</a> (to output Grids), and <a
href="http://redrock.ncsa.uiuc.edu/PATHFINDER/pathrel2/explorer/ReadDF/ReadDF.html">
ReadDF</a> (to output Lattices) are capable of reading from NCSA HDF files, MFHDF/3.3
files, and Unidata netCDF files. A user-friendly interface provides control and
information about the contents of the files.
</p>
<p>For ReadDF, the format translation is handled transparently. Up to five unique
lattices may be generated from the file (as these files can contain multiple
data fields) using a single module. A variety of dimensionalities and data types
are supported also. Multiple variables may be combined in a single lattice to
generate vector data. All three Explorer coordinate systems are supported.</p>
<p>With ReadDFG, user selected variables from the file are output in up to five
PATHFINDER grids. Each grid can consist of scalar data from one variable or
vector data from multiple variables. Coordinate information from the file is
also included in the grids. Any number of dimensions in any of the Explorer
coordinate types are supported.</p>
<p>For more information on the NCSA PATHFINDER project and other available modules,
visit the WWW/Mosaic PATHFINDER Home Page at <a
href="http://redrock.ncsa.uiuc.edu/PATHFINDER/pathrel2/top/top.html"> http://redrock.ncsa.uiuc.edu/PATHFINDER/pathrel2/top/top.html</a>
The ReadDF module may be downloaded either via the WWW server or anonymous ftp
at redrock.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the /pub/PATHFINDER directory. For more information
please send email to: pathfinder@redrock.ncsa.uiuc.edu</p>
<p>See also the information on <a href="#DDI">DDI</a> for another way to use netCDF
data with IRIS Explorer.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="LeoNetCDF" name="LeoNetCDF">LeoNetCDF</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.leokrut.com/leonetcdf.html" >LeoNetCDF</a> is a
Windows application (Windows96/NT and higher) for editing netCDF
files. It can display content of netCDF files in tree style control
and permits editing its parameters in a standard Windows interface
environment.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Mathematica" name="Mathematica">Mathematica</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html"
>Mathematica</a> is a technical computing environment that provides
advanced numerical and symbolic computation and visualization.
As of version 6, Mathematica adds classic
<a href="http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/ref/format/NetCDF.html" >netCDF data</a> to the many forms of
data it can import, export, and visualize.
</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="MATLAB" name="MATLAB">MATLAB</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab/">MATLAB</a> is an integrated
technical computing environment that combines numeric computation, advanced graphics
and visualization, and a high-level programming language.
Versions 7.7 and later of MATLAB have built-in support for reading and
writing netCDF data. MATLAB version 2012a includes the netCDF 4.1.2 library
with OPeNDAP client support turned on, so remote access to netCDF and
other data formats supported by OPeNDAP servers is available.
</p>
<p>For earlier versions, several freely-available software packages that implement a MATLAB/netCDF interface
are available:
<a href="#nctoolbox" >nctoolbox</a>,
<a href="#NC4ML5">NetCDF Toolbox for MATLAB-5</a>, <a href="#MexEPS">MexEPS</a>,
the <a
href="#CSIRO-MATLAB">CSIRO MATLAB/netCDF interface</a>,
<a href="http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/loadFile.do?objectId=15177&objectType=file"
>NetCDF reader</a>, and
<a href="/software/netcdf/Contrib.html">fanmat</a>.</p>
<h2><a id="Noesys" name="Noesys">Noesys</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.rsinc.com/NOeSYS/index.cfm" >Noesys</a> is software for desktop
science data access and visualization. Available for both Windows and Power Macintosh
platforms, Noesys allows users to access, process, organize and visualize large
amounts of technical data.
<p>Noesys can be used to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Access and organize complex technical data</li>
<li>Export data objects to text and binary</li>
<li>View and edit large multidimensional data sets (up to 7D) in a spreadsheet-like
environment</li>
<li>Manipulate and process data using <a
href="http://www.exelisvis.com/ProductsServices/IDL.aspx">IDL®</a>, the Interactive Data Language,
from Research Systems, Inc.</li>
<li>Interactively visualize column, matrix, and volumetric data sets</li>
<li>Image global datasets as various map projections</li>
<li>Create various projections from partial data or partial projections from
global data (Windows only)</li>
<li>View and Edit HDF-EOS grid object data</li>
<li>Subset datasets and data tables with a GUI dialog</li>
<li>Change and save the number format of datasets and data table fields</li>
<li>Drag and Drop HDF objects between files to organize or subset files</li>
<li>Attach text annotations directly to the data file</li>
<li>Add new data objects to files and create hierarchical groups</li>
<li>Edit or create new color palettes</li>
<li>Generate publication-quality graphics for data presentation</li>
</ul>
<p>Noesys has an interface to IDL®, allowing data to move back and forth between
Noesys and IDL with the click of a mouse. Noesys includes the visual data analysis
tools, Transform, T3D and Plot, for menu driven plotting, rendering, and image
analysis. Noesys can import HDF, HDF-EOS, netCDF, ASCII, Binary, DTED, GeoTIFF,
SDTS, TIFF, PICT, and BMP files, create annotations, macros, images, projections
and color palettes specific to the data and save it the result as an HDF file.
Noesys also includes an HDF-EOS Grid Editor. Noesys runs on Windows 95/98 &amp;
NT and Power Macintosh OS. More details and information about ordering Noesys
are available from <a
href="http://www.rsinc.com/NOeSYS/index.cfm">&lt;http://www.rsinc.com/NOeSYS/index.cfm&gt;</a>.</p>
<h2><a id="Origin" name="Origin">Origin</a></h2>
<p>Ryan Toomey reports:
<p>Our website is
<a href="http://www.originlab.com/" >http://www.originlab.com/</a>
</p>
<p>A general description of Origin: Origin includes a suite of features
that cater to the needs of scientists and engineers alike. Multi-sheet
workbooks, publication-quality graphics, and standardized analysis
tools provide a tightly integrated workspace for you to import data,
create and annotate graphs, explore and analyze data, and publish your
work. To ensure that Origin meets your data analysis requirements,
intuitive tools for advanced statistics, regression, nonlinear curve
fitting, signal processing, image processing and peak analysis are
built-in. Since any analysis operation can be set to automatically
recalculate, you can reuse your projects as templates for future work,
thereby simplifying your daily routine.
</p>
<p>A general description of OriginPro: OriginPro offers all of the
features of Origin plus extended analysis tools for statistics, 3D
fitting, image processing and signal processing.
</p>
<p>
A general description of OriginLab Corporation: "OriginLab Corporation
produces professional data analysis and graphing software for
scientists and engineers. Our products are designed to be easy-to-use,
yet have the power and versatility to provide for the most demanding
user."
</p>
<h2><a id="PPLUS" name="PPLUS">PPLUS</a></h2>
<a href="http://dwd6.home.mindspring.com/">Plot-Plus (PPLUS)</a> is a general
purpose scientific graphics package, which is used in several PMEL applications.
It will read most standard ascii or binary files, as well as netCDF file format,
which used by the TOGA-TAO Project and the EPIC system for management display
and analysis. PPLUS is an interactive, command driven, scientific graphics package
which includes features such as Mercator projection, Polar Stereographic projection,
color or gray scale area-fill contour plotting, and support for many devices:
X-windows, PostScript, HP, Tektronix, and others. This powerful and flexible package
recognizes netCDF data format, and it can extract axis lables and graph titles
from the data files. The user can customize a plots, or combine several plots
into a composite. Plots are of publication quality. The PPLUS graphics package
is used for all the TAO workstation displays, including the animations. The animations
are created by generating a PPLUS plot for each frame, transforming the PPLUS
metacode files into HDF format with the PPLUS m2hdf filter, and then displaying
the resulting bit maps as an animation with the XDataSlice utility, which is freely
available on Internet from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications,
at anonymous@ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu (141.142.20.50). There is also a new m2gif utility
which produces GIF files from PPLUS metacode files.
<p>PPLUS is supported for most Unix systems and for VAX/VMS, and is in use at
many oceanographic institutes in the US (e.g., (PMEL, Harvard, WHOI, Scripps,
NCAR, NASA, University of Rhode Island, University of Oregon, Texas A&amp;M...)
and also internationally (Japan, Germany, Australia, Korea...). </p>
<p>Plot Plus is now available at no charge. It does require licensing on a per
computer basis, but the license is at no cost. For more information about licensing,
see <a
href="http://dwd6.home.mindspring.com/pplus_license.html">http://dwd6.home.mindspring.com/pplus_license.html/</a>;
source and documentation are available via anonymous FTP from <a
href="ftp://ftp.halcyon.com/pub/users/dwd/pplus1_3_2.tar.gz">ftp://ftp.halcyon.com/pub/users/dwd/pplus1_3_2.tar.gz</a>
and <a
href="ftp://ftp.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/manual-dir/pplus.pdf">ftp://ftp.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/manual-dir/pplus.pdf</a>.</p>
<pre>
Email: plot_plus@halcyon.com
Postal mail: c/o Donald Denbo
2138 N 186th St
Shoreline, WA 98133
Fax and Voice: (206) 366-0624
</pre>
<h2><a id="PV-Wave" name="PV-Wave">PV-Wave</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.vni.com/products/wave/index.html">PV-Wave</a> is a software
environment from <a href="http://www.vni.com/">Visual Numerics</a> for solving
problems requiring the application of graphics, mathematics, numerics and statistics
to data and equations.
<p>PV-WAVE uses a fourth generation language (4GL) that analyzes and displays
data as you enter commands. PV-WAVE includes integrated graphics, numerics,
data I/O, and data management. The latest version of PV-Wave supports data access
in numerous formats, including netCDF.</p>
<p>See also the information on <a href="#DDI">DDI</a> for another way to use netCDF
data with PV-Wave.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="SlicerDicer" name="SlicerDicer">Slicer Dicer</a></h2>
<a href="http://www.slicerdicer.com/">Slicer Dicer</a> is a volumetric data visualization
tool, currently available for Windows and under development for other platforms.
The Slicer Dicer Web site includes a complete list of features, an on-line user&#39;s
guide, and examples of Slicer Dicer output. Visualizations features include:
<ul>
<li>Perspective view of data rendered on interactively selected orthogonal slices,
oblique slices, blocks (arbitrary rectilinear sub-volumes), cutouts, isosurfaces,
and projected volumes (projected maximum, minimum, maximum absolute, or minimum
absolute).</li>
<li>Optional annotations: caption, axes ticks and labels (default &quot;pretty&quot;
ticks, or override to place ticks where you want them), color legend, data-cube
outline.</li>
<li>Animation modes: slices, space, time (any parametric dimension), transparency,
oblique slice orientation, rotation. Built-in animation viewer supports speed
and image size controls, single-step, forward, backward, loop, and back-and-forth
modes.</li>
<li>Select color scale from 25+ built in color tables, or import from palette
file. Any data level or range of levels can be painted with an arbitrary color.</li>
<li>Any data level or range of levels can be rendered as either opaque or transparent.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Surfer" name="Surfer">Surfer</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://www.goldensoftware.com/products/surfer">Surfer</a> is a
full-function contouring, gridding and 3D surface mapping
visualization software package. Surfer's sophisticated
interpolation engine transforms XYZ data into
publication-quality maps. Surfer imports from and exports to
a multitude of file formats, including NetCDF grids.</p>
<h2><a id="vGeo" name="vGeo">vGeo</a></h2>
<p> <a href="http://www.vrco.com/products/vgeo/vgeo.html" >vGeo</a> (Virtual Global
Explorer and Observatory) is an end-user product from <a href="http://www.vrco.com/" >VRCO</a>
designed to import and visualize multiple disparate data sets, including computer
simulations, observed measurements, images, model objects, and more. vGeo is
available for IRIX, Linux and Windows platforms and supports displays ranging
from desktop monitors to multi-walled projection systems. It accepts data in
a variety of formats, including netCDF, and allows the user to specify how multiple
files and variables are mapped into a data source. 3D graphics are built from
the underlying data in real-time, and the user has interactive control of graphics,
navigation, animation, and more. </p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="VISAGE and Decimate" name="VISAGE and Decimate">VISAGE and Decimate</a></h2>
<p> <a
href="http://www.crd.ge.com/esl/cgsp/projects/visage/">VISAGE</a> (VISualization,
Animation, and Graphics Environment) is a turnkey 3D visualization system developed
at General Electric Corporate Research and Development, (Schroeder, WJ et al,
&quot;VISAGE: An Object-Oriented Scientific Visualization System&quot;, Proceedings
of Visualization `92 Conference). VISAGE is designed to interface with a wide
variety of data, and uses netCDF as the preferred format. </p>
<p>VISAGE is used at GE Corporate R &amp; D, GE Aircraft Engine, GE Canada, GE
Power Generation, as well as ETH Zurich, Switzerland, MQS In Chieti, Italy,
and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.</p>
<p>GE has another application called &quot;Decimate&quot; that does polygon reduction/decimation
(Schroeder,WJ et al, &quot;Decimation of Triangle Meshes&quot;, Proceedings
of SIGGRAPH `92). This application uses netCDF as a preferred format. Decimate
is currently licensed to Cyberware, Inc., makers of 3D laser digitizing hardware.
Decimate is currently bundled with the scanners, and will soon be available
as a commercial product.</p>
<p></p>
<h2><a id="Voyager" name="Voyager">Voyager</a></h2>
<p>
<a href="http://voyager.makai.com/" >Makai Voyager</a>, developed by
Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc., is 3D/4D
geospatial visualization software that enables users to import, fuse, view, and analyze large
earth, ocean, and atmosphere scientific data as it is collected or
simulated in a global geo-referenced GIS platform. The key differentiator
of Makai Voyager is its level-of-detail (LOD) technology that enables
users to stream big data rapidly over a network or the web.
</p>
Features in Makai Voyager Version 1.2 include:<p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Preprocessing LiDAR, GIS, & volumetric data from common formats
into streamable files</li>
<li>Volume rendering for large 4D (3D + time) data, such as
NetCDF</li>
<li>Analysis tools and customizable graphs</li>
<li>WMS and other streamable formats</li>
</ul>
<p>
Individual or group licenses are available for Windows (32- and
64-bit), Linux, and Mac OS X.
A full-featured 30-day trial version of Makai Voyager is <a
href="http://voyager.makai.com " >available for download</a>.
</p>
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