Weather Graphics support

Weather Graphics support
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Having a problem or do you want to know how to get the most out of your software?

First check through our FAQs below. There's lots of good information!

Visit our discussion forum and talk to other users. In some cases this can be better than contacting us as you'll get a wider range of opinions and pointers to tutorials or writeups that we may not know about.

Quick Index
Ordering Installing Digital Atmosphere Registering Digital Atmosphere Upgrading Digital Atmosphere Weather data issues	Plotting issues Contouring issues Mapping issues Printing issues Miscellaneous issues

ORDERING

How can I order Digital Atmosphere?
To order Digital Atmosphere, see our online catalog at: http://www.weathergraphics.com/catalog/.

How can I contact you?
Visit our contact page at http://www.weathergraphics.com/contact..

Can I test your software?
Yes! The Digital Atmosphere evaluation version gives you a full-fledged 30-day test drive to let you decide whether the program is suitable for your use. Please take full advantage of it! Download and play around with the program before you decide to spend any money. This method has made all of our users happy by being sure that they're buying what they want. This is more lenient than most big-business software publishers, who don't give you any test drive, then have the gall to not allow refunds when it doesn't work as promised.

Is it safe to order from your website?
We have been processing credit card orders for 11 years, and we use a secure socket layer for your credit card data and process it by hand. We also frequently audit our own computers to make sure we are not storing credit card numbers. The risk of credit cards in E-commerce has, not surprisingly, been hyped out of proportion by banks and the media in an attempt to profit off of consumer fear. You are safe with us, and your merchant bank offers you protection.

What is your position on customer privacy?
The big corporations may profit from selling information about you, but we consider it to be an invasive breach of privacy. We respect our relationship with you as a customer, and any orders that you place with us are held in strictest confidence. Your name and address are used only for our own reference, and may be used for us to mail you information about our own products (only occasionally, not one spam every week). If you're not interested in receiving any mailings from us, please contact us.

Do you do customization of Digital Atmosphere?
Yes, we offer contract work on Digital Atmosphere. Any individual or company may purchase programming time at $65 per hour (4 hour minimum) to see that bugs are fixed or features are added. Turnaround time is about a week. Contact us to get started.

Do you offer VIP support?
Yes. Although free support is provided by e-mail, we offer VIP service by telephone to include help with Digital Atmosphere or consulting work. The rate is $65 per half hour. To order, click click here. All VIP payments are for time, not for solutions; therefore refunds cannot be issued.

INSTALLING DIGITAL ATMOSPHERE

Will it run on my computer? I don't have the slickest, newest machine.
As a matter of policy we program Digital Atmosphere on machines that are behind the curve (currently our programming machine is based on a 2 GHz Celeron purchased in 2006). This ensures compatibility with older computers and lightning-fast performance on new computers. No need to have all the latest upgrades and drivers. Just Windows XP or 2000 will suffice.

Do I have to uninstall Digital Atmosphere to upgrade it?
It's not required, but it's a good idea just to make 100% sure there won't be any conflicts of any kind. To uninstall Digital Atmosphere, go to the Control Panel, then choose "Add/Remove Hardware", then choose "Digital Atmosphere". Do not uninstall if you are concerned about losing your special settings and configurations.

REGISTERING

Need a key number?
We will need your serial number, found in Digital Atmosphere's Help > Register menu (if this is grayed out, it means you're already registered). This varies on each computer and is necessary for us to determine the key number. Also be sure to send your name and mailing address so that we can verify you are on our books as a registered user. E-mail this to us at our address here. We will then send you the key number.

Key number doesn't work?
Without fail, 100% of all instances of this problem are a result of mistyping or improper key use by the end user. We have processed thousands of serial-key requests without any "bugs" on our end. For example, we copy & paste all numbers between E-mail and our key generator, eliminating all procedural error, and our key generator is exactly the same as that embedded in Digital Atmosphere, eliminating mathematical error. The culprits are invariably:
* The user mistyped/misread the serial number when sending it to us.
* The user mistyped/misread the key number into Digital Atmosphere.
* The user inadvertantly or intentionally mix-matched keys and serials between two or more computers. A specific serial-key combination is useable on ONE MACHINE only and can't be transferred to another machine (which in turn requires its own serial-key combination).
* The user reinstalled Windows, wiping out all stored registration information on the machine.
To solve this problem, send your serial number again to us here and we'll verify the information.

Installing on a second computer
Users who have purchased Digital Atmosphere strictly for personal use may install Digital Atmosphere on a second computer. Just install it on the new computer then check it under Help > Register and contact us with the serial number. We'll then look up the key number.

What happens if you go out of business?
We grant the user of a Weather Graphics product the right to use it in perpetuity. We honor this agreement. In the unlikely event of Weather Graphics shutting down, we will enable automatic approval of all activation requests or post an unprotected version online, as a way of allowing users to continue using our products.

Can I get keys for older versions of software?
Absolutely! We will never require you to upgrade to a newer version. Though our ability to provide technical support for older versions may be impossible or impractical, we will provide keys to allow your program to work fully.

Safeguarding a registration
The registration is lost with any hard drive crash, and can't be transplanted onto another computer since it is unique to each Windows installation. Needless to say, we have to do this since sadly a lot of people won't register software even if they continue using it past the evaluation date. Some users say that requesting a key is a problem. I'm not sure why, since A) you get full use of the program for 30 days while you wait, and B) you can get a new key from me anytime. I've been on E-mail almost daily since 1991. We have never received a complaint about being unable to get a key number, though on occasion it may take me a week or two during extremely busy periods. Also I should mention that we do sell the Digital Atmosphere Professional version, which contains no serial/key process. This is designed for agencies and individuals who have mission-critical operations and don't want any vulnerability to not having a key. It's priced at $199, partly to keep the number of unprotected copies floating around at low levels. It is not available for download and must be ordered.

UPGRADING

Upgrade notifications
To get added to an upgrade announcements list, sign up at weathergraphics on Google Groups. Google Group. Unfortunately I'm pretty slow at getting around to writing up newsletters (only one was produced in 2006) so there will be little danger of your email box getting clogged up.

Getting the most out of Digital Atmosphere
Regular users should visit our online forum, which was created mainly for Digital Atmosphere. Here you can find out about current news, hear from other users, and ask questions.

DATA

Is the Internet required to use Digital Atmosphere?
No, not at all. Digital Atmosphere was designed in an era when continuous Internet was not always available. It works great with canned data (i.e. data stored on your hard drive), which makes it outstanding for case studies. Digital Atmospheer will work with legacy dialup and other systems like EMWIN, Accu-Data, WSI, and Kavouras.

Using data from flight simulators
The data available from "Real Weather" sites like http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt/weather/ and http://pc38.seva.net/~xplane/ consist of re-converted non-standard SAO formats that are not recommended for use in Digital Atmosphere because of numerous formatting errors. Furthermore, since SAO format was never used outside North America, Digital Atmosphere will not recognize foreign observations from these sites. There is no reason to use those sites when direct feeds from GTS exist and can be accessed through your Internet > Retrieve panel.

How can I correct bad data?
You can correct bad data temporarily by dragging the mouse across the station. Then go to File > Quality Control and change and find the station you want to change, then edit the erroneous value (to eliminate it set it to -9999). You can correct the data permanently in DA2000 V1.0a and later by editing the DIGATMOS.RUL file with a text editor. In the first column, put the WMO or ICAO of the station. In the second column put the data type (TEMP, DWPT, WDIR, WSPD, SLP, or ALST) and in the third column put the action (this will be DELETE but we plan to support other types of actions such as data corrections in a future release). Any future imports you do will be affected by the DIGATMOS.RUL file settings.

Solving 404 errors
First you must try out different sites in the list, and try them at different times during the day, and see what happens.

ABSOLUTELY NO DATA CAN BE DOWNLOADED:

Are you running Norton Internet Security (NIS), Zone Alarm, or other firewall programs? Firewalls are a big cause of cutting off Digital Atmosphere from the outside world. You will need to add Digital Atmosphere to the firewall's list of programs that get Internet privileges.

Your system clock or time zone may be erroneous. Go to Internet > Retrieval and look at the suggested time AND date tokens. Do they match the current Universal Time shown at the US Naval Observatory's site? If not, go into your Control Panel and check your date/time and time zone settings. Be sure that the daylight saving time settings are correct. If you make a change, close and reopen the Internet Retrieval panel to accept the new settings.

Check your Internet connection. Your ISP may be having a problem of some sort.

Does your ISP use a proxy server? If so, you will need to enter the settings for the proxy server in File > Preferences > Misc > Proxy Server Settings. We cannot provide any kind of support for configuring this. You'll need to contact your ISP or network administrator for the settings. Note there is no ability to handle proxy server ID/passwords.

SOME DATA CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM CERTAIN SITES SOMETIMES:

Are you accessing data too early in the hour? Sometimes products are not available for 10 or 20 minutes after the cardinal hour as the data servers are going through a bulletin collection cycle.

The data server may be offline. This can be "tested" by checking out the URL, and trimming off the filename in a browser to try to list out the directory. You may discover that the server is broken, offline, or the contents have been rearranged. We are not responsible for making short-notice corrections or notifications, as this kind of thing happens occasionally. Simply use a different data source and we will fix it within a few months.

You have too many data items selected. You only need one METAR resource, one upper air source, and so forth. Do NOT select more than what you need. If one of these sources is offline, it will interrupt the entire data retrieval operation. If you want, you can find the problematic data source by using a process of elimination to check one resource at a time and retrieving from that source until you find the one that generates the error.

ONLY FRONTAL BULLETINS CAUSE PROBLEMS:

Does this occur only with frontal bulletins? It is very difficult for Digital Atmosphere to estimate when this product will be available. In many cases you can subtract 1 or 2 hours from the @H time token to get the latest product.

Why am I receiving old weather data?

Does this occur with Synoptic and Upper Air data?. This data is NOT generated hourly. It is only available every 6 to 12 hours. Digital Atmosphere is not designed to retrieve intermediate synoptic observations, but this can be overridden by changing the URL construct for the synoptic observation sites in Internet > Retrieve.

Try clearing out your data directory using the File > Clear Data Directory command to make sure that old scraps are weeded out.

Storing data as a file, then importing
If you choose to save data manually, you must save the incoming weather data into a disk file. Under Netscape or Explorer, you can do this by having the raw data on your screen, then choosing "File, Save As...". Remember the directory and filename you are saving the data to. Then when it is finished downloading, go into Digital Atmosphere, choose "File, Import a file..." and choose that file. After it imports, you can then plot and analyze it. Note that if you're on the Internet, you can skip this whole process by choosing Internet > Retrieve Data and let Digital Atmosphere do all the work.

Range check errors
These are caused by a corrupt data element in your file that is causing Digital Atmosphere to abort one of the import modules. It will continue importing data, but one of the data types (such as synoptic, SD, or rawinsonde) will be unavailable. Range check errors are for the most part harmless though annoying. If this happens, please send a sample of the file to our E-mail address and we will try to fix it in the next version of the program. Be sure to clearly indicate the problem with the sample or we will not be able to do anything with it.

Using international data
In the Digital Atmosphere Internet > Retrieve panel, a large number of the download options are valid for Europe and most other parts of the world. For first-timers we recommend any one of the entries listed as "Synoptic (world)". That will allow surface data for most places in the world to be plotted. (And yes, International data does include the U.S.!)

PLOTTING

I cleared the map and asked DA to display current data, and it is displaying other (older?) data for KMFE (& I assume for other stations?)

This is not behavior I have seen... the only thing I can think of that would cause this is: The data directory is loaded with old data somehow (this is solved by using File > Clear Data Directory and reimporting data).

You have SYNOP and METAR data mixed together in the file; Digital Atmosphere will often try to display the SYNOP data since there's more of it, and will not display the METAR data if it's valid for another time [this was the cause of this particular complaint]. You can display each dataset by manually setting the surface time, but of course this means you have to know which time frames are available. The best way to avoid this is to NOT download METAR and SYNOP data together.

Too much METAR data was downloaded from multiple sources; only one METAR resource should be used at a time before Internet > Retrieve is done again. Alternatively you can "lasso" the MFE plot and QC the station to see how many instances of observations exist for this station. This would be the thing to do after following the above.

I want to research out new weather stations or correct a station in the Digital Atmosphere listing. What resources can I use to do my research?

DIGATMOS.STN file. You can add and delete stations from Digital Atmosphere by editing DIGATMOS.STN with a text editor, saving, then using Digital Atmosphere's File > Recompile Tables to enable the changes (it takes about 5 minutes).

Station page. For plenty of links, resources, and databases relating to weather stations, head to our Station Identifier Page. You can even download a program called METAR Audit that compares real-time data to the Digital Atmosphere station listing and finds new stations that aren't in your listing.

Cloud heights cannot be plotted by layers. It plots only the ceiling.
There is no capability to plot heights layer by layer. This is a capability that will have to go into our suggestion box for inclusion at some point in the future.

We are having a problem with some station plots we added. They are not plotted in the correct coordinates which we included in station file. I've checked if the coordinates were right and it seems so.
The fraction portion of each station's latitude and longitude must be entered in minutes, not decimal fractions. In other words, a station halfway between 6 deg S and 7 deg S would be entered as 0630S, not 0650S. Other problems could arise from station identifiers that are longer than the space allocated to them (4 letters for ICAO and 5 letters for WMO number).. this could cause duplicates to occur.

Where can I get a list of the used weather symbols and their meanings?
See our plot reference sheet at wxcode1.gif (weather) and wxcode2.gif (clouds). These images are extracted from our Weathergraph reference sheet.

In Digital Atmosphere 2000, when I display a station plot, I only get the oktas, wind barb, pressure and ceiling height. No temperature, no dewpoint, no visibility. I checked the preferences immediately, and all of the fields are there.
Go to File > Preferences > Station Plots and re-select the items in the dropdown menu where you see the temperature, dewpoint, and visibility. This will enable a new set of elements that are now in use (i.e. TEMP(F) changes to TEMP, DWPT(F) changes to DWPT, etc). We have patched the downloadable version on our web site for this, but there's no reason to re-download, since the above corrections accomplish the exact same thing and fix the error permanently.

What are the alphanumeric codes used for the ceiling height on station plots?
Measurement method: M=Measured E=Estimated C=Unknown

How can I customize the Television Plot cities?
All you need to do is look in your Digital Atmosphere program directory (using any ASCII editor such as Windows Notepad) and edit the file named DIGATMOS.PLL . Columns 1-4 should contain the ICAO (for METAR observations) and columns 6-10 should contain the synoptic station number (for synoptic observations). Either the ICAO or synoptic identifier, or both, can be used. Columns 12-50 should contain the text for the station that you want plotted on the map (leave it blank if you want nothing). We hope to do away with this crude interface in an upcoming version of Digital Atmosphere and add a city list interface.

Is there a way to force the use of a particular weather station in the plot data command?
Yes. Add the desired station to your DIGATMOS.PRI file using a text editor. Stations in this list are always plotted first.

A station plot I want to look at isn't on the map.
Digital Atmosphere operates with a default selection of using a clutter suppression algorithm, which avoids plotting a station if there is a chance it will overwrite an neighboring one that's already plotted. You can turn this off by going to File > Preferences > Station Plots and checking "Plot All Stations". This may make your map VERY cluttered. To force a station to always plot, add it to the DIGATMOS.PRI prioritization file so it gets plotted first.

Why are some station plots red or blue?
A red station plot indicates instrument flight rules (IFR), which means the ceilings are below 1000 feet and/or the visibility is below 3 miles. A blue station plot indicates marginal visual flight rules (MVFR), meaning the ceiling is below 3000 feet and/or the visibility is below 5 miles. These colors are good for helping you visualize areas of low ceilings and visibility at a glance.

What do the square station plots represent?
The square symbol is reserved for automated stations. An automated report is signalled by either "AUTO", "ASOS", or other similar abbreviations in the report, or by the indicator for automated observations in a SYNOP report.

I'm seeing numbers and letters where there should be station cloud cover and weather type.
This indicates that the WeatherSymbols font was not properly installed, or you are re-using Digital Atmosphere after a Windows reinstall without reinstalling Digital Atmosphere. You must fix this by reinstalling Digital Atmosphere. If you know where the WeatherSymbols font file is, you can go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Fonts, then File > Install New Font and select the WeatherSymbols font. Otherwise you must reinstall.

CONTOURING

The analysis isopleths don't seem to match well with the data.
All objective analysis routines are smoothed so that the isopleths don't look extremely coarse. You can reduce the smoothing operators in the File > Preferences > Analysis menus. Also, take into account that if a station sends out a bad meteorological value, the analysis may yield a more representative value than the station plot itself. You can clean up bad data using the Quality Control command as discussed in previous chapters. If you need extremely accurate isoplething, hand analysis (on top of a printed map) is always the best solution.

How can I change isopleth colors, linestyles, and intervals?
Edit the scripts stored in the DIGATMOS.MNU file. See the help manual on how to change the scripts.

MAPPING

When I tried to use generate map function and cancelled out of it, Digital Atmosphere locked up and gave the following errors: Error allocation memory for DIB / Writing bmp file failed. After that the map is "stuck", data won't plot, and Generate Map fails to let me generate a new map.
Here is what you should do to "untangle" the map attributes. Here's how to do it.
1. On the toolbar (NOT in the menus), pick Alabama in the Generate Map dropdown list. It will regenerate a map, which may be slightly off.
2. Go to Map > Generate Map > Enter Lat/Long. It should let you in now.
3. Press the United States in the location quick-pick.
4. Press the Reset button in "Advanced"... this will set image offsets back to 0 and aspect to 1.
5. Press OK. A new map will be generated, which may be slightly off.
6. Repeat Step #1 for any location.
7. Repeat Step #2-5 for any location.
8. The problem should be fixed now.

Where can I get high-resolution topographic maps?
You may download them from the following website: http://www.wistorms.net/planetaryZips/ Note that the files are very large and will take time to download.

Why doesn't Digital Atmosphere plot cities?
This is an optional feature that you will need to configure for your own purposes. Simply edit the DIGATMOS.CIT file and add the cities you want plotted (you'll need the latitude and longitude). The format is self-explanatory.

I just generated a map and noticed a certain inlet or water body did not fill with an ocean color. (Digital Atmosphere 2000 and earlier only)
If you modify the [digitalatmosphere]\GEO\FILL.GEO file, you can add in a new "point" where an ocean color fill can be forced. Simply right-click on the unfilled area and choose "Get lat/long". Using this lat/long, enter it in the FILL.GEO file. Future map generating operations will fill this area starting at this point.

Every now and then when generating a map, I see an area that's been flooded by an ocean fill. (Digital Atmosphere 2000 and earlier only)
There is probably a defect in the geography file that allows a gap in the coastline to be plotted. One method to avoid this is to regenerate at a different zoom level or use File > Maps > Double Wide Coastlines. This geography file problem can't be permanently fixed until the next upgrade, however in the next upgrade we will be adding an editable fill boundary file that will allow users to "close off" any problematic boundaries.

Is it possible to correct political boundaries in Digital Atmosphere? Is there not a file (geo) similar to the *.plr file which I can edit to fix a border?
You can add borders, of course, using custom geography (see the manual), or erase the basemap and use your own shapefile. We will NOT make changes for border dispute reasons (e.g. India/Pakistan, Argentina, etc).

What is the map projection used for all Digital Atmosphere imagery?
Digital Atmosphere uses the orthographic projection.

Can I remap satellite imagery into the same projection used by Digital Atmosphere and use it as a background BMP?
Only if you can remap the satellite imagery to the orthographic projection and manually scale it and set the aspect ratio as necessary. This can't be done automatically by Digital Atmosphere because it's impossible for the software to guess at the position of the satellite photos and how to fit the image.

PRINTING

When I attempt to print a chart I get a totally black page. But I was able to export to a file then print the file.
The problem is with the Windows layers handling printing, however this is rarely reported. Digital Atmosphere basically just sends it the image and it's the driver's job to process it. If this happens, there are only a few things you can do:
(1) Find an option in the print setup to change to "send as raster", or deselect.
(2) Make absolutely sure your workchart background is pure white (go into Preferences > Styles, set the background to white, then regenerate the map).
(3) Copy the map to the clipboard (File > Copy to Clipboard) and then paste into your favorite graphics program (like PaintShop Pro), then print; these graphics programs usually have custom-built code that does a better job than the Windows image handlers.
We will try to add in an option in an upcoming version to send the printer an alternative image format to see if this helps. (9/6/05)

I'm having problems printing to my printer (typically an HP but may include other models).
A few users in the past have reported problems printing, in particular with HP LaserJet printers (such as getting blank pages). This was mostly a problem in Windows 95, 98, and ME due to substandard drivers, and it seems that it has gone away in 2000 and XP. By 2002 we were getting very few complaints.

Is there anything I can do to get a good printout?
There are a few things you can try. Go to print setup (below), and either change the resolution from 600 to 300 dpi or change "vector" to "raster". If your printer is equipped with a PostScript option, use the PostScript mode for 600-dpi printing. This 600-dpi PCL5 printing problem is not specific to Digital Atmosphere. Documents with various graphic images may not print correctly to the LaserJet 4 in PCL mode at 600 dpi unless the Graphics option in the Windows printer driver setup is set to Raster mode.

If I can't make printouts, is there anything I can do?
Use the clipboard. Simply go to Map > Copy to Clipboard, then switch to another graphics program that is known to work well with your printer, and paste it there. Then you can print the image. And if you're having printer problems, by the way, let us know. We're interested in the details.

The printer responds with "overflow error" or erratic "out of paper" errors.
The maps that Digital Atmosphere sends to your printer are huge and for best results will require 4MB or more of RAM on your printer. This usually isn't a problem with inkjet printers (where the printfile is spooled off the hard drive), but laser jet printers require a complete image in their memory before they print to the drum. If this is the case, go to File > Printer Setup and change the resolution settings so the map is printed at a lower resolution. Another remedy is to avoid solid color fills, such as topography, blue oceans, etc, since they take up considerable printer memory. On the other hand, RAM is extremely cheap these days; upgrade your printer's memory.

MISCELLANEOUS

Can you list all the "secret" files in Digital Atmosphere that I can modify?
Sure. Here they are:

DIGATMOS.MSE Geography reference table for "Generate map"
DIGATMOS.SYI Definitions for symbols and pictograms
DIGATMOS.EMP EMWIN bulletin definitions
DIGATMOS.PLR Custom geography overlay definition
DIGATMOS.CIT Custom city overlay definitions
DIGATMOS.SLZ Internet retrieval URL/title table (can be modified within program)
DIGATMOS.PLL Television plot city locations
DIGATMOS.RUL Rule file for auto QC'ing of observations

I am seeing a numerical error code.
These are system runtime errors and may be encountered from time to time in Digital Atmosphere and other software programs. Although these errors are very rare, here are some of the ones we've seen over the years.

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