McIDAS-V supports a variety of location text file formats. All of these formats can be loaded through the File Chooser. Select the "Location" data type.
The main format McIDAS-V uses is a custom locations XML format. This format still has some nomenclature from when it was atmospheric science related (e.g. "stations"). A simple example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<stationtable name="Example">
<station name="station 1" lat="65:02:06" lon="-147:30:06" elev="790"/>
<station name="station 2" lat="40.3" lon="-107.5" elev="10"/>
...
</stationtable>
The lat and lon attributes can be of the form:
+/- ddd:mm, ddd:mm:, ddd:mm:ss, ddd::ss, ddd.fffff ===> [+/-] ddd.fffff
+/- ddd, ddd:, ddd:: ===> [+/-] ddd
+/- :mm, :mm:, :mm:ss, ::ss, .fffff ===> [+/-] .fffff
+/- :, :: ===> 0.0
Any of the above with N,S,E,W appended
The elev attribute is optional. By default it is in meters. The default can be overridden with an elevunit in the stationtable tag. e.g.:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <stationtable name="Example" elevunit="feet"> <station name="station 1" lat="65:02:06" lon="-147:30:06" elev="5340"/> ...
The station tags can have an id attribute as well:
<station id="APD" name="Fairbanks/Pedro Dome"
lat="65:02:06" lon="-147:30:06" elev="790"/>
The station tags can also have any other attributes:
<station id="APD" name="Fairbanks/Pedro Dome"
st="AK" co="US"
lat="65:02:06" lon="-147:30:06" elev="790"/>
<station id="FTG" name="Denver/Boulder"
st="CO" co="US"
lat="39:47:12" lon="-104:32:45" elev="1675"/>
These can be displayed by the station model used in the Location Display Control.
To create a permanent list of stations that show up in the Display->Locations menu in the Main Display window, create a file called userstations.xml in the McIDAS-V directory under your user's home directory. The format would look like:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <stationtables> <stationtable name="SubsetA" category="My Custom Stations"> (list of stations for SubsetA) </stationtable> <stationtable name="SubsetB" category="My Custom Stations"> (list of stations for SubsetB) </stationtable> </stationtables>
This will show up in the Display->Locations menu as a top menu called My Custom Stations and sub menus SubsetA and SubsetB. After adding this XML file in through the Files/Directories chooser, McIDAS-V must be restarted before the stations will be listed.
Location data can be defined in a CSV (Comma Separated Value) format. The first line is a comma separated list of column names. There must be columns that are latitude and longitude. These are denoted with (case insensitive):
latitude lat longitude lon long
Altitude is given by the column names:
alt altitude
The altitude value, if defined, is by default in meters. Optionally, specify a unit with the suffix: "[unit name]" (see example).
The first column that is found that is not one of the location columns is taken to be the name of the location.
Example:
Name,Latitude,Longitude,Altitude,State Boulder,40,-107,5430[feet],CO Miami,30,-95,0[feet],FL ...
McIDAS-V can also read GeoRSS formats. This is a geocoded RSS feed.
McIDAS-V can also read KML/KMZ formats. This type of file can be read in through the General>Files/Directories Chooser of the Data Sources tab of the Data Explorer with the Google Earth Files KML/KMZ Data Type. An example file from the USGS can be found here:
http://comcat.cr.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000ije3.kml