POES Descriptor Files

POES descriptor files contain a list of currently available images for a specific data type. The data type is typically defined as the transfer mode. The file name indicates the transfer mode and each has a unique descriptor file name.

Descriptor File Naming Convention

The naming convention is: /data/descriptor, where descriptor is the descriptor file name as defined by the transfer mode of the satellite. The descriptors used for POES are:

ALL (list of all available POES images)
GAC (Global Area Coverage)
HRPT (High Resolution Picture Transfer)
LAC (Local Area Coverage)

The descriptor name is designed to be used as a search tool for images and their times. No sectorizing is done by the SDI system.

Descriptor File Format

The screen display below is an example of a POES GAC descriptor file. Each text entry consists of five fields, which are described below.

poes.1997.198.135033.GAC 5 198 104700 12779 141
poes.1997.198.143122.GAC 5 198 122800 12781 142
poes.1997.198.150627.GAC 9 198 132130 11100 143
poes.1997.198.151214.GAC 9 198 113230 13738 144
poes.1997.198.160938.GAC 5 198 141038 12525 145
poes.1997.198.164741.GAC 9 198 144851 12630 146

Field Name	Description
INDX_name	consists of a-d, as described in the Index File Format section, plus the signal type (e.g., GAC, LAC or HRPT)
Sat ID	the spacecraft address, not the McIDAS sensor source number (see the Spacecraft Address column in the table at the beginning of this chapter), e.g., 5
Day	nominal start julian day (ddd) of the image
Time	nominal start time (hhmmss) of the image
eline	ending line number of the image
position	unique number assigned to an image; if the same image is listed in more than one descriptor file (e.g., All and HRPT) it will have the same position number in each file

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