netcdf-vis

netcdf-vis is a web application that extracts netCDF data and visualises it on a web map.

Live demo: https://smlum.github.io/netcdf-vis/app/

Using the app

The app provides users with an interactive Leaflet web map with temperature and wind data overlays.

The overlays and basemaps can be toggled from a control panel in the top right.

Building and launching

Clone the netcdf-vis repository

git clone https://github.com/samFredLumley/netcdf_vis
cd netcdf-vis/app

The app must be run on a web server. For example, using http-server:

http-server

And then in your browser go to:

http://127.0.0.1:8081

Custom netCDF data

To configure the app for custom netCDF data you must add the netCDF file to the data/netcdf directory and edit data/netcdf2.py.

It may be preferable to work with the IPython Notebook file netcdf2leaflet-velocity.ipynb to use the step-by-step commented instructions. For example, using Jupyter Notebook run:

cd netcdf-vis/app/data
jupyter notebook netcdf2leaflet-velocity.ipynb

Running the python file will generate two files: wind.json and temps_sm.js, which are used as inputs for the web map.

Map configuration

The Leaflet map can be modified in netcdf-vis.js. Modifications to the Leaflet plugins can be made in the src and dist directories.

Distribution

The demo app can be embedded into another webpage as an iframe:

<iframe src="https://samfredlumley.github.io/netcdf-vis/app/" width="600" height="400"></iframe>

A custom version of the app could be embedded in a similar way.

References

This project relies on:

• netCDF4
• leaflet-velocity
• Leaflet.idw

Which themselves rely on:

• L.CanvasOverlay.js
• Leaflet.heat
• earth

Further work

• Add instructions
• Create user interface for netCDF extraction
• Automate server side Python data processing from web app
• Integrate netCDF conventions
• Support time dimension
• Support data streaming
• Explore other temperature visualisation options