radar color table for gif (web) output

[Al Pietrycha]

I believe there was some previous discussion concerning poor radar color with a conversion to gif imagery going on the web. Although not perfect and certainly not going to satisfy everyone, I’ve played around using non-dithered colors and the output for the web is improved. See the following as an example (update at :10 :20 and :44 after each hr)

http://stormeyes.org/maps/txmesonet.gif
http://stormeyes.org/maps/bdl.gif

Here’s the color table I created and inserted in place of the “College of Dupage Scheme”

001 RA 000 000000 0
001 RA 001 66FFFF 5
001 RA 002 00CCFF 10
001 RA 003 3366FF 15
001 RA 004 00FF33 20
001 RA 005 00DD00 25
001 RA 006 00BB00 30
001 RA 007 FFFF66 35
001 RA 008 FFCC00 40
001 RA 009 FF9900 45
001 RA 010 FF0000 50
001 RA 011 EE0000 55
001 RA 012 BB0000 60
001 RA 013 FF99FF 65
001 RA 014 CC66FF 70
001 RA 015 FFFFFF 76

For VCP-31/32 (clear air modes) I inserted this table into the default scheme. You'll need to change 001 to 000 and RA to RB.

If someone creates a better web safe color table, please share your results .

--Al Pietrycha

[Weasel]

Great looking color scheme Al!

Pat

[Wally Mayo]

Yes Al, that's quite excellent.

I also played around with the pallete to really LIGHTEN up the color tones so surface plots could be seen easier.

Here's what we use:
################################################
# CUSTOM RADAR PALLETTE #
################################################

001 RA 000 000000 0
001 RA 001 AAFFFF 5
001 RA 002 78F0F5 10
001 RA 003 00C3FA 15
001 RA 004 A0FFDC 20
001 RA 005 3CFFA0 25
001 RA 006 00D28C 30
001 RA 007 FFFF78 35
001 RA 008 FFDC64 40
001 RA 009 FFB446 45
001 RA 010 FA6E00 50
001 RA 011 FF0000 55
001 RA 012 FF82FF 60
001 RA 013 FF00FF 65
001 RA 014 D800D8 70
001 RA 015 F5E9D6 76

001 V 000 000000 ND # RGB
001 V 001 000000 <-64
001 V 002 00FB00 -50 to -63
001 V 003 00E300 -36 to -49
001 V 004 00AA00 -26 to -35
001 V 005 008A00 -20 to -25
001 V 006 007100 -10 to -19
001 V 007 739273 -1 to -9
001 V 008 947173 0 to 9
001 V 009 840000 10 to 19
001 V 010 9C0000 20 to 25
001 V 011 B50000 26 to 35
001 V 012 D60000 36 to 50
001 V 013 EF0000 50 to 63
001 V 014 FF0000 >64
001 V 015 8C009C RF

Of course, you could just use this to replace a pallete you already have.

See maps for an example of how DAWS saved in GIF or JPEG;
http://www.weatherroanoke.com/mapexample.jpg
http://www.weatherroanoke.com/mapexample.gif

You can see some difference between the two. But both are still lighter than most defaults.

[tornadoforecaster]

Guys:

How do you edit these colors in DAWS? I especially liked Wally's
version - nice job!

Randy

[Al Pietrycha]

Randy,

Edit the digatmos.nex file to play around with the color tables.

--Al

[Wally Mayo]

To edit colors, I find COLOR COP a neat little program (found on download.com or zdnet's download area) to deal with the hexadecimal conversion and color depictions while choosing colors.

[tornadoforecaster]

Al,

Thanks. I've found and been playing around with this.

RG