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Take a
Tour of WxPortal Features
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WxPortal's
unique web browser interface allows you to visualize weather
data unified in time and space. Although there are as many
as 4 million WxPortal map images online at anytime, and
nearly 500,000 new maps are generated each day, all the
maps are displayed through a common interface on a single
web page. No more clicking on link after link trying to
find what you need! The "ensemble control table"
lets you easily select your data streams from eight layers
of data visualization.
Take the tour below and see how easy WxPortal is to learn
and to use.
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on the WxPortal interface elements to learn more: |
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Main
Graphics Display:
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The
graphics display area is where you view the graphical
weather data presented by WxPortal. Up to eight layers
of information can be viewed at any time. The layers
are organized by their graphic attributes - for example,
Background Images, such as Satellite images, are opaque
and must be on the bottom of the "stack"
of map overlays. Foreground Images such as the one
at the left have some transparency (i.e. you can see
the background image through them). Contour Lines
(colored and black-and-white) display variables like
temperature, humidity, etc. The Arrows layer shows
"wind barbs" (depicting wind speed and direction).
The Streamlines layer shows wind direction (and the
general flow of a weather pattern at various levels
in the atmosphere). The Postings layer shows point
specific data (i.e. temperature at an airport "Metar"
location). The 3D Objects layer shows 3D isosurfaces
of upper air level features.
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Thumbnails:
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The
thumbnail windows allow you to quickly store and recall
your weather data scenarios or data combinations.
To create a thumbnail from your current display, simply
click-and-drag the graphics window to the thumbnail
where you wish to store the scenario. A dialog box
will then open, prompting you to enter a name for
the thumbnail. Any text or numbers can be entered
for the thumbnail name and this text will be visible
to you later as a "tool tip" when you hover
your cursor over the thumbnail.
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To
recall a thumbnail, first verify that the thumbnail
is for a currently active zone,
then double-click on the thumbnail. The stored scenario
will be displayed with the current weather data.
To
remove a thumbnail, uncheck all Overlays (States,
Counties, Highways and Water), which should render
a blank graphics window. Then click and drag the blank
graphics window to the thumbnail you wish to remove.
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Thumbnail
Controls:
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Six
sets of four (24 total) "thumbnails" can be
stored in the thumbnail library. Left click on the number
of the library to view the thumbnails stored in that
library. The button for the currently viewed library
is shown depressed (#1 in this example).
This feature lets you quickly save and recall your weather
"Favorites" so you don't have to recreate
them every time you use WxPortal. |
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General
Usage: The Zone Selector allows
you to choose up to four "Active Zones". The
four active zones are displayed with radio
buttons below
the Geographic Zones header.
Click once on the 
button to open the Zone Selector window (see below).
The
Zone Selector radio buttons allow you to change the
current zone of interest. |
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Zone
Selector Page: Zones
can be selected or deselected either by clicking on
the map (a zone outline is displayed) or by clicking
on the name of the zone in the list on the right.
Selected zones are displayed as yellow
text.
Placing your cursor over the map will highlight the
zone name in the list before you select it.
Only four zones can be active at one time. You will
get a warning message if you try to select more than
four.
Press
the Select button to finalize your choices and
return to the main page. Be patient, there will be a
slight delay while the main page reloads with your new
current active data. |
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Map
Overlays:
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The
map selection boxes allow you to turn on and off reference
map overlays such as political boundaries, roads and
water features. The system has the ability to display
custom overlays as well, such as your pipelines, power
plants, factories, etc. |
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WxPortal
Ensemble Control Panel:
General Usage:
On the far left side of the Ensemble
Control Panel you see eight buttons arranged vertically.
Each of the eight buttons represent the types of graphical
weather map data that can be displayed in WxPortal.
Clicking on these buttons enables a series of cascading
and hierarchical pop-up menus much like your Windows
"Start" Menu. As such, they are initially
invoked working from left to right across your screen.
For example, select "Contour (black)",
then choose a source of forecast model data (Eta), then
pick the source time (08/16:12) you are interested in,
select the atmospheric pressure level (850mb) or surface
level, and finally, select the weather variable (Wind
Speed) to display. After selecting the final option,
the pop-up menus disappear and your choices are displayed
in the Ensemble Control Table area. To make changes
to your selections you can click on any table item to
change sources, times, pressure levels, variables, etc.
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Data
Type Selection Buttons:
This option allows you to select the backdrop upon which
all other weather data will be displayed.
This option lets you select the weather data you wish
to display as a Foreground Image.
This
option lets you select the weather data you wish to
display as black contour lines.
This option lets you select the weather data you wish
to display as colored contour lines.
The “Streamlines” option lets you select graphical displays
of weather data shown as streamline data elements.
The “Arrows” option lets you display wind speed and
direction.
The “Postings” option lets you select numerical displays
of weather data shown as point specific data elements.
For example, the daily high temperature at Chicago’s
O’hare Airport is shown as 76 degrees.
The “3D Objects” layer lets you display 3D rendered
variables such as cloud cover, jet streams, etc.
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WxPortal
Timeline Controls:
| Timeline
Selection Buttons and Pull-down menus: |
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The
pull-down menu on the left side allows you to set the
start time for your sequence. The pull-down menu on
the right side allows you to set the end time for your
sequence. The pull-down menu in the center displays
the time of the weather data being currently viewed,
and allows you to change the currently displayed time
frame. Clicking and dragging the red line in the timescale
display will also change the currently displayed time
frame.
The 
button toggles between Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and
Local time.
Timeline Display and Functionality:
The Timeline graphically displays the
frequency of the data sources. Some data, such as satellite
or radar images, are quite frequent (every few minutes)
while other data from forecast models are less frequent
(hourly, daily, etc.) The current data set being displayed
is indicated on the timeline by the red vertical line.
When you hover your cursor over the red line a special
cursor will appear indicating that you can click-and-drag
the timeline to change the currently displayed data.
While dragging the red vertical timeline control, you
will see the time changing in the "current"
Time Display above.
NOTE: When your timeline is set to display future
data such as predictive models, some data types (such
as Radar and Actual Temperatures) are not available
in the timeline display, since they have not occurred
yet and therefore can't be displayed.
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Animation Controls: |
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The
animation controls allow you to control the view of
graphical weather data through time sequences. You must
STOP ANIMATING to make changes to your currently
displayed variables (specifically - changing start and
end animation times does not work while animating).
Animation Rate
Click on the 
button to set the animation rate. The animation rate
is the same for forward or backward animation. The animation
rate can't be less than 0 seconds. You can also choose
the amount of delay (dwell time) at the ends of an animation
loop. This is helpful when trying to analyze a sequence
of images for weather trends. The amount of delay will
be effective at either the beginning or end of the sequence,
depending on whether you animate forward or backward.
Animation rate is dependant on a number of factors.
The first time you animate a sequence of time steps,
the browser will fetch each image and add it to your
browser cache, and thus your animation speed is dependant
on your Internet connection rate. Subsequent animation
of those variables will use the cached images and the
animation speed will attempt to follow the rate you
have chosen. Still, the animation rate is affected by
the number of layers you are animating, the speed and
available memory of your PC's graphics card, etc. To
insure best results, verify that your browser is set-up
to use the cache (Temporary Internet Files option under
Tools menu), check that the disk space allocated for
cache is adequate to hold all the images you want to
animate, and make sure your disk actually has enough
free space to hold the allocated amount for Temporary
Internet Files.
General Usage
Click once with the left mouse button to activate each
control as follows: |
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The
left arrow+vertical bar moves you back one frame. |
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The
left arrow starts playing a loop of images progressing
frame by frame backward in time until the Stop
button is clicked (when all the frames have been
displayed, the sequence begins again at time n.). |
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The
Stop button stops playing the animation sequence. |
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The
right arrow starts playing a loop of images progressing
frame by frame forward in time until the Stop
button is clicked (when all the frames have been
displayed, the sequence begins again at time one).
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The right arrow+vertical bar moves you forward
one frame. |
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The
"Time" button toggles the time readout
between GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and Local time
displays. |
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WxPortal
Utilities:
     
Pressing the
button
allows you to refresh the weather overlays currently
displayed. Newly available data is added to your timeline.
Pressing the
button
allows you to turn off all weather data overlays currently
displayed in the main graphics window.
Pressing the
button
opens another browser window and lets you print the
weather data displayed in the main graphics window.
Pressing the
button opens another browser window and brings you
to this page.
Pressing
the
button opens a dialog box where you can set user preferences.
Currently you can set the animation speed and the
amount of pause time at the end of an animation loop.
Pressing
the
button opens the Single Site NEXRAD radar selector
window (see below).
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NEXRAD
Selector Page: National
Weather Service NEXRAD sites can be selected by
clicking on the map locations for each reporting
station. Placing your cursor over the map location
will display the station name before you select
it. |
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| More
Information: |
| For
more information please contact one of our environmental business
consultants: Lee Alnes at 651.842.4264 or Karen Olson at 651.842.4270
or send an Email to: sales@windlogics.com
with your request. |
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