Education Center | Photo Gallery

Data Advanced Data Search More Data Discovery & Access Easy-to-use Data Products Data Collections Data Software & Programming Tools Data Submission Data News Centers & Programs Antarctic Glaciological Data Center Arctic System Science Data (ARCSS) IARC Frozen Ground Data Center International Polar Year Data & Information Service (IPYDIS) NOAA at NSIDC NASA's Distributed Active Archive Center at NSIDC (NSIDC DAAC) U.S. Antarctic Data Coordination Center World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder Science Scientists Research Projects Publications NSIDC Notes Glaciological Data Series Special Reports Posters & Presentations Annual Reports Education Resources News & Events Press Room NSIDC In the News Data News Events About Expertise Data & Services NSIDC Sponsors Contacts Jobs Related Organizations

** DRAFT ** DRAFT ** ** DRAFT ** DRAFT ** ** DRAFT **

IDL Access Tools

NSIDC has developed a number of IDL programs to browse and visualize P-cube and TOVS Polar Pathfinder (Path-P) data files. Installing and running these IDL tools allows the user to perform the following functions (please refer to the tutorial for examples of each):

• Listing a Table of Contents, including dates, daily variables and ancillary data
• Displaying a color image of any variable and date
• Displaying a color animation of any variable and a range of dates
• Displaying a scatter plot of any two variables for a given date
• Displaying a time-series plot of any (column,row) coordinate for any variable and range of dates
• Displaying a table of general statistics (minimum, maximum, average, standard deviation) for any variable and range of dates
• Extracting, saving and restoring a 3-D array of data and its associated metadata for any variable and range of dates
• Conversion routines for (latitude,longitude) to/from (column,row) coordinates for all of the Polar Pathfinder EASE-Grids, including
  • Northern Hemisphere grids:
    • 100km (P-cube and TOVS)
    • 25km (AVHRR and SSM/I)
    • 12.5km (SSM/I)
    • 5km (AVHRR)
    • 1.25km (AVHRR)
  • Southern Hemisphere grids:
    • 25km (AVHRR and SSM/I)
    • 12.5km (SSM/I)
    • 5km (AVHRR)
    • 1.25km (AVHRR)
• Playing a specified number of frames from a GIF animation file starting at a selected frame number (GIF animation files only on P-cube CD)

IDL tools were developed at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, with the exception of COLORBAR.PRO, which is used for the legends on most of the color graphics displays. COLORBAR.PRO is included here by kind permission of its author, Dr. David Fanning.