RAF netCDF file timeseries plotting tool.
ncplot is an interactive plotting tool for viewing aircraft in-situ time-series data. The GUI is based on X11 and theMotif toolkit. ncplot allows the user to view time-series data stored in netCDF files that conform to the NCAR-RAF/nimbus conventions. Both Low-rate and Mixed-rate files are supported, as well as files where the data have been reduced below 1 sps (sample per second), e.g., files run through ncav.
A few of its features are:
Plots up to 8 datasets per graph.
Can draw from up to 4 netCDF files on the same plot.
1 to 4 time-series strip charts.
1 to 4 XY plots.
XYZ plot.
ASCII window.
Spectra, Co-spectra, Quadrature, Coherence, and Phase.
Allows user-defined titles, labels, scaling, and major & minor tic marks.
Annotations.
Publication quality [Encapsulated] [color] PostScript printouts.
Optional realtime/on-board mode.
ncplot is NOT for contouring, image or vector data.
ncplot was written at the Research Aviation Facility of The National Center for Atmospheric Research to view and analyze our aircraft data (and NOAA's GIV). The NCAR-RAF/nimbus conventions were designed to store multi-rate data, i.e., variable A may be stored at 5sps and variable B at 25sps. ncplot will plot variables of differing rates (and from different files) next to each other. Every effort has been made to make it "what you see is what you get" between the screen and printouts.
User's Manual.
RAF netCDF file conventions.
ncplot is available via MacPorts or follow the MacOS build environment directions to build from source.
Redhat
openmotif-devel (motif-devel CentOS 8 & Fedora)
netcdf-devel
flex-devel
gsl-devel
xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-75dpi
xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi
Ubuntu Bionic (18.04)
libxt-dev
libmotif-dev
libnetcdf-dev
libgsl-dev
flex bison
ncplot can be built on any Unix platform, including MacOS. Motif GUI toolkit is the limiting factor.
git clone https://github.com/ncar/ncplot
cd ncplot
If you are on MacOS, follow MacOS Environment instructions above and edit the Makefile and uncomment the MacOS section.
For Ubuntu, edit the Makefile and uncomment the two lines under the Ubuntu heading.
make
