McIDAS-V Coordinating Committee - Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Present: Tom Achtor, Tom Whittaker, Tom Rink, Becky Schaffer, Dee
Wade, Kathy Strabala, Matt Lazzara
Guest: Bill Bellon
Bill Bellon started with a presentation on his proposed web page for the project.
Developers need to be able to track their assigned tasks, their hours worked,
and their projected hours for the next month. Managers need to
be able to track what the developers are doing on what projects and to track
the work being done on each task and project. They need to be able to
reply back to the PIs on how funding is being spent. We want this to
be simple for the developers to use, and to also give useful information for
the managers, without anyone being bogged down by paperwork. Keep It
Simple.
TomA brought up the work being done by Tom Demke with Program Management Requirements.
Each project should have three things: 1- Requirements to get the project
done, 2 - The plan to achieve the requirements, and 3 - Verification that the
requirements were satisfied. If we can get everybody using this
proposed web system, Bill's web page should satisfy all three of these requirements.
MattL brought up the need to track not only what is currently being done, but
also what is needed (like the Mc-X inquiry system). He wondered if we
were reinventing what had already been done.
TomW - Top Priorities (in no particular order)
1 - HYDRA
- integrate functionality for hyperspectral data (IASI, AIRS, GIFS)
- create interface for HYDRA
2 - Easy installation
- Mc-X
- IDV
- Plug-Ins
- Local ADDE servers
3 - Mc-X bridge
- IDV cursor position back to Mc-X
- Vector graphics
4 - Improved GUI
- one-click image selection
Dee and Becky agreed with those priorities. Becky also brought
up the need for processes to run in the background and for machines without
graphics cards to still work with mc-v. TomW said that background processes
do work with the IDV. Dee said that DaveP looked into the graphics
card issue, and it should not be a problem.
Kathy also agreed with those priorities, and reiterated the importance of making
the ADDE servers easier to install and to share data. She also
wanted to add one thing to the list:
5 - Easy configuration for new data formats
Dee asked what the timeline is for getting these tasks completed. Because
there is no infinite pot of money to pay for the work and no team of programmers
with 100% of their time dedicated to this project, the answer is "when they
get done". Dee mentioned that we have a McIDAS Users' Group meeting
planned for May/June and would like to have some things to show at that meeting.
In response to the question of what exactly is Mc-V and what will it look like,
TomW answered that Mc-V will be Mc-X, the bridge, IDV, and any other plug-ins
like HYDRA. TomA restated from the meeting last week that Mc-V is not
a replacement for Mc-X.
TomA reminded the committee that their job is to keep a broad vision for the
future - thinking ahead 5-10 years, not just for the next meeting.
Dee mentioned that she would like her McIDAS Users to have more of an active
role in the decision making of this committee. TomA does not want more
people at these meetings, but brought up the survey sent to the McIDAS users. Dee
is the representative of the McIDAS community at these meetings. Polling
her users was a way for her to gather information from her users so that she
could accurately represent their needs. TomW brought up the Unidata steering
committee - possibly a MUG steering committee could be created and then Dee
would be the representative of that steering committee at the mc-v-cc meetings.
The next "all hands" meeting is October 11th. At that meeting,
we'd like to be able to show the developers how to use the new web page, and
also make sure that people understand their assigned tasks (this should have
already been done via email or meetings with Tom, et al.) Anybody
that has been working on this project can tell people what they've been working
on, what they plan on working on, and any problems/questions they have.
TO DO:
Get the web page done for the October 11th meeting (BillB and Becky)
Assign the tasks for each of the priority items, so that the developers are
informed by the time of the October 11th meeting (TomW and TomR, who will request
any necessary help from the rest of the mc-v-cc)
NEXT MEETINGS:
Coordinating Committee
- Wednesday, October 25th - 10:30 a.m. in Room 351
- Wednesday, November 22nd - 10:30 a.m. in Room 351 (day before Thanksgiving?)
McIDAS-V Team
- Wednesday, October 11th - 10:00 a.m. in Room 351
- Wednesday, November 8th - 10:00 a.m. in Room 351