[nclpy-group] Thoughts on changing NCL's default map database to "MediumRes"

[u.utku.turuncoglu at be.itu.edu.tr]

Hi Mary,

Thanks for letting us about this change. In my opinion, the coastline of
global map is fine and there is no need to add more detail to it. For
regional one, i think that lower-left one (v6.4.0) seems reasonable too. I
am personally using the highest resolution dataset (Earth..4) for all my
regional plots. Yes, it takes time but the results are more professional
and ready for publication. The file size could be an issue but i newer
check the size of the produced files created by different datasets. Of
course, it depends on the application. If you want to quick look to the
results of the dataset than lower resolution could be fine in that case.
Anyway, i am also using shape files regularly and the current version of
NCL is doing resolvable well about it but i am still open to new features
:)

Regards,

--ufuk

> I'm writing to get the NCL advisory group's opinions on a somewhat
> significant change we plan to make in NCL Version 6.4.0.
>
> As you may know, the default map database in NCL is the "LowRes" database,
> which is woefully out-of-date.  We get the feeling that people tend to use
> the "MediumRes" database if they turn on political outlines or if they
> zoom
> in on regional areas.
>
> For the NCL V6.4.0 release, we propose making the "MediumRes" map database
> the default one that is used if the user specifies any map boundaries
> other
> than the default "Geophysical" boundaries.
>
> We originally thought about making the "MediumRes" map database the
> default
> in all cases, but when we ran some timing tests we saw a 57% increase in
> time across our graphics test suite (this included global and regional
> plots). We then decided that perhaps the default should only be changed in
> the case where the user requests map outlines other than geophysical
> outlines.
>
> We also considered making the "Earth..4" database subset of the
> "MediumRes"
> database the default, because it has much nicer outlines than the default
> "Earth..2". However, this caused a 300% increase in time, and a
> significant
> increase in the size of the graphics output files.
>
> I've attached a script and some sample images so you can see what the
> different databases look like. I used "Germany" as the focal area of
> interest, since the "LowRes" database still has the East/West dividing
> line
> <cringe>.
>
> In a future release of NCL, we plan to incorporate shapefile outlines more
> seamlessly. The changes we are proposing now are just a small step to
> improve the NCL maps until then.
>
> We would welcome any comments, positive or negative, regarding this
> proposal. I will likely post this to ncl-talk before too long, but wanted
> to get this group's thoughts first.
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> --Mary
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