20030409: Isosurface scaling

>From: John McCormick <address@hidden>
>Organization: SAIC
>Keywords: 200304091659.h39Gxg7U021935 IDV isosurface

John-

>Thanks for your message and hope you're not getting all the rain we've
>been 
>getting...(You may have snow, instead)... This is the 3rd solid day of
>rain 
>here in the RTP, NC area.. It's not coming down hard but in time, it can
>cause
>flooding and soft ground for trees to become "vulnerable" to fall...
>lots of
>new "chuck holes" in the roads developing too... 

It's been beautiful here this week.  Been wearing shorts the
last 2 days.  Should hit 80 on Sunday.

>Well, back to the subject, I was glad that you were aware of the
>"behavior" that
>I mentioned to you about the "labels and dash checkboxes" ... I wasn't
>sure if 
>you might have been aware of it but glad you are.... 

I'm working on a fix for this so that is it's an isosurface,
the labels and dash checkboxes would be disabled.  Haven't got
it working yet though.

>This pertains more to the iso-surface displays than anything else ...
>and that 
>is that I remember during our demo that there was a subtle question
>raised about 
>knowing what the altitudes were for the "iso-surface-plane" displayed...
>The 
>person asking the question was most interested in the altitude of, say,
>temperature
>at a given value... I might have a couple of suggestions: 

This was also asked recently at the Unidata User's committee meeting.

>(1) Scale the corner of the vertical sides of the box with values in
>either meters
>    or feet... 

This would be like Vis5D and is what I am inclined to pursue.

>(2) Automatically, have isobar-lines embedded in the iso-surface plane
>as it is 
>    moved up or down ...(this may be too complex and require much
>work)...

I'll ponder this.  Another option would be to have the isosurface
colored by pressure or altitude.  This is what D3D (AWIPS version of Vis5D)
can do.  We are closer to having this done and should have the
ability to color one isosurface parameter by another in the next
release.

>I don't think that this might be a "high concern" right now, Don, but I
>didn't 
>want to forget mentioning it to you since the question did come from an
>audience
>participant in the demo over a week ago, (March 28, 2003)...  

It's a good suggestion.

>By the way, I noticed that the altitude reading displays 8568.5 meters
>everywhere I
>take the cursor (land and/or sea)...Could that mean that we've been
>communicating in
>a "substantial" depth of water?  LOL.... (A little humor does good)... 

I'm not sure what to do about this.  If you rotate the 3D cube on
it's side, you will get a more accurate reading.  However, from
a top view, what should the altitude be - top, bottom, static?
I'd welcome suggestions on this.

Don