The Weatherman

I came across this GPL’d set of mapping tools called GMT or The Generic Mapping Tools. It’s amazing how quickly one can create a map with relatively decent detail. This is all I did to get up and running:

1. Download and install netCDF
2. Downloaded the install script
3. Ran install_gmt

They provide an online form for creating the parameters used by install_gmt - however I had problems getting it to work. So I just ran install_gmt in interactive mode and answered the questions on the command line. Finally I started using their tutorial and within minutes I ran the following command:

pscoast -R236.5/238.5/37/38.5 -JM6i -P -Df -Ia -V -B5g5 -G180/120/60 -Na -W > map.ps

and I used ImageMagick’s convert to create a png file that you see here:

Very impressive tool. You can add political borders, including state borders with one command line parameter.

So why would one want this? Well, organizations like the NWS provide tons of data but much of it is longitude and latitude. GMT allows you to create maps that you can later plot against with mapping data.

OK, so not the most interesting use, but it’s a start.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2005 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Computer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.