Utilities for reading Chilbolton-format radar data and Vaisala lidar ceilometer data

Version 0.8
Copyright (C) 2000 Robin Hogan

This documentation describes how to use various UNIX utilities for reading and processing Chilbolton-format radar data, including programs for plotting the data and converting it to ascii and netCDF. They are all based on the same C library and thus share all processing capabilities and nearly all command-line options. Similar programs for Vaisala lidar ceilometer data are now included in this package, since they both rely on the same plotting library.

Introduction

• Motivation and features (radar data only)

Unix utilities

• makesum: a utility for creating radarsummary files
• chilplot: a utility for plotting processed radar data in png or eps format
• chil2a: a utility for processing radar data and outputting it as ascii
• chil2nc: a utility for processing radar data and outputting it as netCDF
• chilinfo: a utility for reporting basic information on a radar file: useful in shell scripts
• ceilplot: a utility for plotting lidar data in png or eps format
• ceil2nc: a utility for converting lidar data to netCDF
• cloudncplot: a utility for plotting lidar or cloud radar netCDF data in png or eps format

Matlab utilities

• loadchil: a `mex' program for reading processed radar data directly into matlab
• loadceil: a `mex' program for reading lidar data directly into matlab

Development notes

• libchil: C library for reading and processing Chilbolton-format radar data
• libceil: C library for reading and basic processing of Vaisala lidar ceilometer data
• rplot: C++ library for producing raster images, used by chilplot

If you have suggestions, queries or bug reports then please address them to Robin Hogan (R.J.Hogan@reading.ac.uk), Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK.