20021107: Setting up McIDAS-X GRID creation for Fkey menu

>From: Richard Massa <address@hidden>
>Organization: UC Davis
>Keywords: 200211080021.gA80LWX27028 McIDAS Fkey uwgrid.sh

Richard,

>Another question...
>
>So I was introduced to the Fkey system by my professor who said that had to
>have this working after all is said and done, so I'm having some problems...

OK, but first I want to encourage use of the MCGUI.  The Fkey menu gets
little attention now adays, so actions in it can be expected to break
eventually.  In fact, I have been receiving comments on several problems
in the Fkey menu from another user over the past few weeks.  I am fixing
those problems, but I will not be adding any new functionality to the
Fkey menu in the future.

I also want to note that the Fkey menu can be run in conjunction with
the MCGUI.  To do this, try running 'mcidas config' and specifying that
you want the MCGUI to automatically start.  When your McIDAS session
starts, you can fire up the Fkey menu from the 'Misc' list available
at the top of the MCGUI.  Again, these can both be active at the same
time, so that things available in the Fkey menu that are not available
in the MCGUI can still be used.  For everything except GRID display,
the MCGUI is recommended over the Fkey menu.

>I ran mcidas config, and selected the FKEY option, and then went to
>
>Model Output - North America Horizontal (F4)
>and then to 500mb Geopotential (F5)
>
>and I get a sequence of commands, with errors like this:
>
>SF 16                                                           
>GU REST GRAPHIC 16 DEV=NNN
>MAP DEF 7 LALO -2 INT=20 20 DASHSET=1 X 5 LAT=20.83 49.88 LON=78 137.97 SLON=1
> 05 PRO>
>MAP: Completed frame 16
>BATCH: BATCH done /home/mcidas/data/BKGMAP.BAT 
>GRDDISP: No grid found matching search conditions    
>
>Various other functions don't work as well and also claim to have problems
>obtaining GRID data...  What do I need to do to make this work?

The Fkey menu GRID actions are based on there being specific GRID datasets
available: RTGRIDS/NGM-UW and RTGRIDS/MRF-UW.  These datasets need to
be created from XCD-created GRID files by running an appropriately
modified copy of the Bourne shell script 'uwgrid.sh' from cron.

By appropriately modified, I mean that you should do the following:

<login as 'mcidas' (or 'ldm')>
<make a local copy of uwgrid.sh so that it won't be overwritten upon
 new McIDAS installations>
cd workdata
cp uwgrid.sh ucduwgrid.sh

<edit your local copy of uwgrid.sh and set McIDAS environment variables
 in the exact same way that you set them in the scripts 'xcd_run',
 'mcscour.sh', and potentially 'batch.k'>

<run your local copy of uwgrid.sh from cron to create the datasets that
 the Fkey menu is looking for.  Here are cron invocations fashioned after
 ones I use on a machine I administer:

#  Create the NGM-UW and MRF-UW GRID files
30 10,22 * * * /home/mcidas/workdata/ucduwgrid.sh NF 1>/dev/null 2>&1
00  9,21 * * * /home/mcidas/workdata/ucduwgrid.sh NG 1>/dev/null 2>&1

Now, the hours that cron jobs run are in local time (too bad, UTC would
be much easier to deal with).  To me, this means that you might want
to alter the entries for your machine since you are one hour furter
west than us:

#  Create the NGM-UW and MRF-UW GRID files
30  9,21 * * * /home/mcidas/workdata/ucduwgrid.sh NF 1>/dev/null 2>&1
00  8,20 * * * /home/mcidas/workdata/ucduwgrid.sh NG 1>/dev/null 2>&1

The tricky part, however, is that the hours the scripts run must be
tailored for your site not only by geographic location (due to the
running of the jobs by local time), but also by the averate time
that you receive the gridded data in the IDD HDS stream.  This is
something each site has to tune themselves.  The hours I provide above
are a good starting point, however.

Now, once the local copy of the uwgrid.sh script is run, you will end
up with GRID files that will makeup the ADDE datasets used by the
Fkey menu GRID display actions.  If the file REDIRECTions you put
in place followed the recommendations on the Unidata McIDAS web pages,
those GRID files will be stored in the same directory as your XCD
created ones.  The will also be scoured by the same scouring action
in mcscour.sh that is being used for the XCD created GRID and MD files.

Please let me know if the above wasn't clear.  Also, be on the lookout
for a McIDAS addendum that contains fixes for other actions in the
Fkey menu.

Tom