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

Thu Mar 17 11:45:27 MDT 2016

Hi Carl and Ufuk,

Thanks for your input!

Regarding Carl's main question, since it's possible to change the medium
boundaries with many different strings (i.e. "National", "Florida",
"AllBoundaries", "New Mexico . Bernalillo"), it's just easier to say this
feature kicks in if you use anything *but* Geophysical outlines. You can
see all the strings for Earth..2 here:

http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/HLUs/Classes/MapPlotData4_1_earth_2.shtml

However, my knowledge of the MediumRes database is not extensive, so Dave
or Rick may correct me in my assumption.

In answer to your other questions:

1) We had discussed the zooming idea before posting to this list. We
decided against it because it's hard to define that "threshold". However,
we are open to ideas. It just makes it more difficult to describe the
behavior of resources to users once you start putting complication
conditions on it.

2) I've often thought about this myself. It's annoying when you have a
regional plot and you get a global plot.

This is a major change to the default behavior, however, and we would have
to consider this very carefully before moving forward with it.  Perhaps as
an interim solution, we can offer up a new logical resource that tells NCL
to crop the map based on the lat/lon values provided by the user, so at
least you only have one resource to set instead of four.

I would love to hear from other folks on this list regarding Carl's
suggestions. I've created a JIRA ticket to keep track, NCL-2412.

--Mary

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 7:05 AM, Carl Schreck <cjschrec at ncsu.edu> wrote:

> Hi Mary,
>
> I think the change makes sense. Just to clarify, it sounds like this only
> kicks in if "National" or "AllBoundaries" is selected?
>
> Two related feature requests...
> 1) Can the default database be somehow dependent on mp(Min/Max)(Lat/Lon)F?
> i.e., use higher res when zoomed in at some threshold?
> 2) Could gsn_csm_contour_map and its siblings default
> mp(Min/Max)(Lat/Lon)F to the bounds of the data?
>
> Thanks again for all you do to make NCL great!
>
> Carl
>
> On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 1:29 PM, <u.utku.turuncoglu at be.itu.edu.tr> wrote:
>
>> 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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>
>
> --
>
> <http://www.cicsnc.org/>
> <http://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-8711-2011>
> * Cyclone <http://www.cyclonecenter.org/>*Center.org
> <http://www.cyclonecenter.org/>   *Carl J. Schreck III, PhD*
> *Research Scholar / Research **Assistant Professor*
> Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites NC (CICS
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