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Bug#540545: ITP: grads -- Grid Analysis and Display System for earth science data



Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry@debian.org>

* Package name    : grads
  Version         : 2.0
  Upstream Author : NASA Advanced Information Systems Research Program
* URL             : http://www.iges.org/grads/
* License         : GPL
  Programming Lang: C
  Description     : Grid Analysis and Display System for earth science data

The Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) is an interactive desktop tool that is used for easy access, manipulation, and visualization of earth 
science data. The format of the data may be either binary, GRIB, NetCDF, or HDF-SDS (Scientific Data Sets). GrADS has been implemented worldwide on a 
variety of commonly used operating systems and is freely distributed over the Internet.

GrADS uses a 4-Dimensional data environment: longitude, latitude, vertical level, and time. Data sets are placed within the 4-D space by use of a data 
descriptor file. GrADS interprets station data as well as gridded data, and the grids may be regular, non-linearly spaced, gaussian, or of variable 
resolution. Data from different data sets may be graphically overlaid, with correct spatial and time registration. Operations are executed 
interactively by entering FORTRAN-like expressions at the command line. A rich set of built-in functions are provided, but users may also add their own 
functions as external routines written in any programming language.

Data may be displayed using a variety of graphical techniques: line and bar graphs, scatter plots, smoothed contours, shaded contours, streamlines, 
wind vectors, grid boxes, shaded grid boxes, and station model plots. Graphics may be output in PostScript or image formats. GrADS provides 
geophysically intuitive defaults, but the user has the option to control all aspects of graphics output.

GrADS has a programmable interface (scripting language) that allows for sophisticated analysis and display applications. Use scripts to display buttons 
and dropmenus as well as graphics, and then take action based on user point-and-clicks. GrADS can be run in batch mode, and the scripting language 
facilitates using GrADS to do long overnight batch jobs. 

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0.2
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: powerpc (ppc)



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