Diana User Guide: File formats

Diana User Guide: File formats | Previous: Vertical crossection functions | Next: Batch plotting | Index

Description and specification of supported file formats in Diana

Object files

Weather objects (fronts, symbols, areas etc.) are stored in object files which will normally have the time as extension on the form .yyyymmddhhmm. An example of such a file is given below:

Date=200510070900;

Object=Front;
Type=Warm front;
LongitudeLatitude=
-9.02711,59.8912,
-3.86701,62.8109,
5.02399,65.9834;
RGBA=255,0,0,255;
!
Object=Symbol;
Type=Fog;
Size=10;
LongitudeLatitude=
1.86341,66.0907;
RGBA=128,128,0,255;
!
Object=Symbol;
Type=Low pressure;
Size=10;
LongitudeLatitude=
0,82.2265;
RGBA=255,0,0,255;
!
Object=Symbol;
Type=Texts;
Text=F~9;
Size=10;
LongitudeLatitude=
0.532281,75.0545;
RGBA=0,0,0,255;
!


LABEL anno=<text="Surface analysis for 2005-10-07 09 UTC"> tcolour=red bcolour=black fcolour=white:200 polystyle=both halign=left valign=top font=Helvetica fontsize=12

The files start with a line
```
Date=yyyymmddhhmm;
```
, e.g.
```
Date=200510070900;
```
There must be a semicolon at the end. This is followed by a blank line.
Each new object description starts with the line
```
Object=TypeOfObject;
```
TypeOfObject can be Front, Symbol, or Area.
Each object description ends with an exclamation mark and each line in the description ends with a semicolon.
A line describing the subtype,
```
Type=Subtype
```
is compulsory for each object.
The possible subtypes are:
- Fronts: Cold front, Warm front, Occlusion,Cold occlusion, Warm occlusion , Stationary front, Trough, Squall line, Significant weather
- Areas: Precipitation, Showers, Clouds, Fog, Ice, Significant weather, Generic area
- Symbols: Low pressure, High pressure, Cold, Warm, Fog, Drizzle, Freezing drizzle, Freezing rain, Showers, Rain showers, Sleet showers, Hail showers, Snow showers, Thunderstorm, Thunderstorm with hail, Snow, Rain, Sleet, Hurricane, Disk, Circle, Cross, Text
A line giving the lon, lat coordinate(s),
```
LongitudeLatitude=Coordinates
```
is compulsory for each object.
Longitude and latitude for each point should be separated by a comma like this: lon1,lat1,lon2,lat2,lon3,lat3; and written in decimal format.
A line describing the colour
```
RGBA=r,g,b,a;
```
is optional. R,g,b and a, are the red, green, blue and alpha components of the colour.
If this line is missing the default colour for this type of object will be used.
A line describing the size can be used for symbols.
```
Size=Symbolsize
```
Symbol size is the symbol's size in points. If this line is missing the default symbol size will be used.
Symbols of type text have a line
```
Text=Symboltext
```
where Symbol text is the text to be displayed.
A LABEL line can be used to write annotations on the plot.

Observations in BUFR format

Diana supports reading observations in BUFR format with support of standard WMO and rdb templates. More informations on wich parameters that are decoded can be found on https://diana.wiki.met.no/doku.php?id=diana_bufr

Observations in ascii format

An simple example an observation ascii file is given below:

[COLUMNS Date:d Time:t:"some text" Lon:lon Lat:lat RRR:r Station:s Icon:image] [DATA] 2004-11-20 12:00:00 10.86 59.55 0.4 "Dear home" wbkz_green 2004-11-20 12:00:00 10.51 59.89 0.1 Home wbkz_red 2004-11-20 12:00:00 9.99 59.19 6.3 Somewhere wbkz_white

DeltaTime - special parameter showing the difference between nowtime and obstime. When adding DeltaTime in COLUMNS, DeltaTime will be calculated for every replot.

[COLUMNS Date:d Time:t Lon:lon Lat:lat DeltaTime:r] [DATA] 2004-11-20 12:00:00 10.86 59.55 2004-11-20 12:10:00 10.51 59.89

Header

Command	Example	Description
UNDEFINED	`[UNDEFINED NaN,Inf]`	`NaN` and `Inf` are treated as undefined values
SKIP_DATA_LINES	`[SKIP_DATA_LINES 3]`	Skip first 3 data lines
LABEL	`[LABEL text="Label text"]`	Syntax: see Labels
SEPARATOR	`[SEPARATOR ;]`	Character used to separate the data colomns. Default separator is space
COLUMNS	`[COLUMNS Date:d Time:t:"some text" Lon:r Lat:r]`	`name:type or name:type:tooltip`
DATA	`[DATA]`	Start of data section

Column types

Column type	Description
r	Real number
i	Integer number
s	String
d	Date (yyyy-mm-dd)
t	Time (HH:MM:SS)
year	yyyy
month	mm
day	dd
hour	HH
time	MM
lat	Latitude in degrees
lon	Longitude in degrees
dd	Wind direction in degrees <0,360]
ff	Wind speed in m/s
ffk	Wind speed in knots
image	Name of xpm, must be defined in setup

The column names are used in the dialogues and in the command strings.
The column types lat and lon are mandatory.
If column type dd and ff/ffk are present, the parameter Wind will be added, and wind arrows can be plotted.
The column tooltips are used in the dialogues (optional)

Time

If there are columns with time information, these observation times will be used.
If there are no time information in the file, but time information from the file name, all observations will get observation time = file time.
If there is no time information, the observations will have no time, and always be plotted.

Header

The header information can be given:

in each datafile
in a separate headerfile
in the setupfile

The last to alternatives are used when plotting asciifiels with a different format. An example of a headerfile and a seperate datafile is given below:

Headerfile:

[SKIP_DATA_LINES 1] [SPLIT_CHAR ;] [COLUMNS ;DEPARTMENT:s;DEPT_NO:s;MUNICIPALITY:s;MUNI_NO:s;ST_NAME:s;STNR:s;UTM_E:s;UTM_N:s;AMSL:s;LAT_DEC:lat;LON_DEC:lon;WMO_NO:s] [DATA]

Datafile:

DEPARTMENT;DEPT_NO;MUNICIPALITY;MUNI_NO;ST_NAME;STNR;UTM_E;UTM_N;AMSL;LAT_DEC;LON_DEC;WMO_NO -999;-1;;-1;TESTSTASJON 86;99986;-999;-999;-999;-999;-999;-999 -999;-1;;-1;TROLL I ANTARKTIS;99990;-999;-999;1277;-72.0167;2.5333;89504 -999;-1;;-1;KATTERJAKK;202000;-999;-999;516;68.4167;18.1667;02020 -999;-1;;-1;NIKKALUOKTA;203600;-999;-999;466;67.85;19.0167;02036 -999;-1;;-1;GALLIVARE;204900;-999;-999;358;67.1333;20.6333;02049

If there are some header lines in the datafiles. use the the command [SKIP_DATA_LINES X] to skip the X first lines of the data files.

Alternatively, the header information can be given in the setupfile:

Setupfile:

PROD=ascii:Stations file="http://klapp.oslo.dnmi.no/metnopub/production/metno?re=16&ct=text/plain&nod=-999&del=semicolon" headerinfo=[SKIP_DATA_LINES 1] headerinfo=[SEPARATOR ;] headerinfo=[COLUMNS headerinfo=;DEPARTMENT:s;DEPT_NO:s;MUNICIPALITY:s;MUNI_NO:s;ST_NAME:s; \ STNR:s;UTM_E:s;UTM_N:s;AMSL:s;LAT_DEC:lat;LON_DEC:lon;WMO_NO:s] headerinfo=[DATA]

Map ascii files

This is a simple ascii map format, used to plot lines.
An example of such a file is given below:

#FIR
69.8  30.82
70.37 31.72
71    30
71.33 28
71.33 25
70    15
65.75 7
-999.999 -999.999
65.75 7
65    6.1
63    4
62    5
62    7.5
62    12.2
-999.999 -999.999
65    6.1
65    6.5
65    7.5
65    8.33
65    12.23
-999.999 -999.999

Each line in the file contains: latitude(desimal,float) longitude(desimal,float)
End of line is given by out of ranges values (lat<90 or lat>90,or lon<-360 or lon>360)

Diana User Guide: File formats | Previous: Vertical crossection functions | Next: Batch plotting | Index