MESOSCALE METEOROLOGY

CLASS LOG

4 September:
- Introduction to class - discuss syllabus
- discuss project
- looked at other web site that display real-time weather information. Discussed positive and negative features.
- identified skills required for the project:
  1. html editing (Dreamweaver)
  2. web page design/layout
  3. image editing/creation (Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop)
  4. animation (Flash)
  5. sound and video
  6. meteorology
  7. programming
9 September:
- Welcome new class members
- identify strengths and skills to be improved
- assign tutorial materials:
  1. Cegeon - meteorology - precipitation and winds
  2. Gab - meteorology - pressure
  3. Ed - Director
  4. Mike/Jeff - scripting/programming
  5. Nick/Kurt - Photoshop/Illustrator
  6. Yevgeniy - HTML/web page design (Dreamweaver)
  7. Guy - image Ready/ photoshop
  8. Erik - flash
  9. Nick - meteorology - temperature and dew point temperature
- work on tutorials
- Cegeon will present on Wed, 11 September

11 September:
- Tutorial by Cegeon on precipitation and winds
  - Issues raised in Cegeon's presentation:
    1. How to effectively display precipitation rates - images of clouds with different drop densities?
    2. What about snowfall?
    3. cloud coverage with web cam - imagery could be used as a tool for a cloud ID tutorial - identify clouds in web cam image to those in a gallery of images and then explain their formation
    4. Wind speed - which units to we use? How to make available other units? Majority thought that we should use a default unit and then provide user option to change to other units.
    5. How to display wind direction? - should get away from numbers and words - convert to imagery
- identify tutorials to be given 16 September
  1. Gab - pressure
  2. Nick M. - temperature and dew point
  3. Mike H. and Jeff - programming/scripting
  4. Ed - Director
- work on tutorials

16 September:
- Tutorial by Gab on pressure
  - Issues raised in Gab's tutorial:
    1. Displaying sea level pressure rather than actual pressure - difference between the two?
    2. How should we relate our pressure measurement to current location of highs and lows?
    3. How do we visualize pressure?
    4. Units to use?
    5. Should we show pressure tendency? If so, how?
- Tutorial by Nick on temperature and dew point
  - Issues raised in Nick's tutorial:
    1. Should we display normal highs and lows? If so, where will this information come from?
    2. Should we display record highs and low? If so, where should this information come from? How will it be displayed?
    3. Should we compute indices (heat, wind chill)? If so, how should we display the information?
    4. Should we display 24 hour temperature change?
    5. How should we visualize temperature and dew point?
    6. What about dew point and how it relates to human comfort?
- Tutorial by Mike and Jeff on programming/scripting
  - Issues raised in Mike and Jeff's tutorial:
    1. Should we embed applets into our web page?
    2. What is the best scripting/programming language to use?
    3. When should the functionality be done "behind the scenes" versus interacting with the user on the web page?

18 September:
- Tutorial by Ed on Director
  - Issues raised in Ed's tutorial:
    1. Do we build this page such that plug ins are required for display?
    2. While Director appears to be a very powerful program, it appears that, for the tasks we are concerned with, other applications such as Image Ready and Flash may be easier to use and more compatible with Photoshop and Illustrator.
Tutorial by Nick/Kurt on Illustrator/photoshop
- Issues raised in Nick and Kurt's tutorial:
  1. Photoshop and Illustrator will be the two primary image creation and manipulation tools used in this project.
  2. We appear to have great expertise in the class when it comes to both applications
Tutorial by Guy on Image Ready
- Issues raised in Guy's tutorial:
  1. Easily creates gif animations and integrates nicely with Photoshop. There appears to be a lot of interest within the class to learn this application.
  2. What is the best way to create animation and sound files? (shockwave, quicktime, gif, etc??)

23 September:
- Tutorial by Eric on Flash - did not show up, will have on 25 Sept.
  - Issues raised in Eric's tutorial:
- Tutorial by Yevgeniy on HTML/web page design (Dreamweaver)
  - Issues raised in Yevgeniy's tutorial:
- A more detailed discussion of our project
  - Graph of tasks
  - Specific tasks to work start with:
    1. Write a script that reads in the data from data file
    2. Once the data is read in, then retrieve the state variables for the current time.
    3. Acquire normal highs and lows and record highs and lows. Then create data base and write script to access information.
    4. Write a script that generates the value added products
    5. Write a script that displays all the state variables, value added products, web cam image and information about tutorials
    6. Create prototypes for what the main page will look like.
    7. Create prototype graphics for:
      - temperature, dew point, and relative humidity
      - normal highs and lows along with record highs and lows for temperature
      - pressure
      - wind speed and direction
      - wind chill and heat index
      - (pressure tendency and 24 hour temperature change??)
- An introduction to perl - demonstration of a simple script that reads in data and displays a result to a web page.

25 September:
- Tutorial by Eric on Flash
- Assign specific projects
- hand out perl documentation - discuss good programming techniques
- how sample data file and script used to display it
- begin working on projects:
  - three groups creating prototype main pages
  - four groups creating prototype graphics/animations
  - four groups creating simple scripts
- NOTE: We need to have the main page completed in about 5-6 weeks.
- TIMELINE:
  - 7 October - discuss as a class, the prototype graphics and main page. Also discuss the best way to organize the perl script into subroutines.
  - 4 November - complete the main page.
  - End of Semester - complete the tutorials
30 September:
- Work on projects.
- Project assignments are as follows:
  1. Web page design_1: Eugin/Kurt
  2. Web page design_2: Erik/Nick M.
  3. Web page design_3: Jeff/Gab
  4. graphics_1: Kurt/Nick Mc.
  5. graphics_2: Nick M./Mike
  6. graphics_3: Guy/Ed
  7. graphics_4: Cegeon/Eugin
  8. scripting_1: Nick Mc./Erik
  9. scripting_2: Mike/Cegeon
  10. scripting_3: Gab/Guy
  11. scripting_4: Ed/Jeff

2 October:
- Work on projects - they will be presented starting next Monday (7 October)
- New assignment:
  - Everyone is to create a perl script that performs the following functions:
    1. Read in the data file that is available through the class web site.
    2. Extract the temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and pressure at some time of your choosing.
    3. create a web page that displays:
      - the current time that the web page is created
      - the time of the data
      - an animated representation of one of the variables listed above (e.g., temperature)
  - This assignment is due by the start of class on 16 October.

7 October:
- Demonstrate current "current conditions" page
- Begin presentations of "work to date" on projeccts:
  - Nick McColl
  - Guy
  - Mike

9 October:
- Continue presentations of "work to date" on projects:
  - Jeff
  - Gab
  - Cegeon
  - Kurt
  - Nick M.
  - Eugin
  - Ed
  - Erik
- Issues to date:
  - We need to more specifically define the page layout
  - Visualization of ALL variables needs to happen asap. Creating graphics that combine multiple variables will be essential.

14 October:
- Presentation by Ed
- Presentations of web page layout and graphics by working groups. The working groups are:
  1. Kurt, Nick Merril, Eugin, Nick McColl
  2. Guy, Cegeon, Erik, Gab
  3. Ed, Jeff, Mike

16 October:
- Presentation by Ed (again)
- Presentations of web page layout and graphics by working groups. The working groups are:
  1. Kurt, Nick Merril, Eugin, Nick McColl
  2. Guy, Cegeon, Erik, Gab
  3. Ed, Jeff, Mike
- discussion of timetable for web page layout and visualization

21 October:
- Presentations of progress to date by each of the three working groups:
  1. Kurt, Nick Merril, Eugin, Nick McColl
  2. Guy, Cegeon, Erik, Gab
  3. Ed, Jeff, Mike
- TIMELINE FOR PROJECT COMPLETION:
  - 4 November -
    - web page design and graphics completed in final form
    - vote on page for final product
    - Identify tutorials to complete - create working groups to begin tutorials and "activate" our main page
  - 4 December -
    - tutorials completed in final form
    - scripting assignment described on 2 October is also due on this day
- Note that evaluations will be completed for:
  - the final web page completed by each working group
  - tutorials
  - scripting assignment

23 October:

Tutorial presentations by:
1. Cegeon on animation creation
2. Guy on road graphic creation
3. Eugin on how to create the roll over effect

28 October:

Final presentations of progress to date by each of the three working groups:
1. Kurt, Nick Merril, Eugin, Nick McColl
2. Guy, Cegeon, Erik, Gab
3. Ed, Jeff, Mike

30 October:

tutorial on web page design by Erik
Discussion of project evaluation for Monday - identify people to evaluate projects
think about tutorials - which to do
work on projects

4 November:

Project Presentation to evaluators

6 November:

Discussion of evaluations and project selection
Identify tutorials and groups to complete them:
- Air Pressure and winds: Cegeon, Erik, Mike
- T, Td, RH: Ed, Kurt
- Clouds and Cloud ID: Nick Merril, Ed and others
- Instrumentation: Jeff S.
- Main Page Activation: Nick Mc., Gab, Guy, Eugin

11 November:

Present outlines of tutorial material

13 November:

Work on tutorials

18 November:

Present outlines of tutorial material

20 November:

Work on tutorials

2 December:

Work on tutorials

4 December:

Present outlines of tutorial material - last presentation

9 December:

Work on tutorials

11 December:

Work on tutorials

13 December:

IDM Class Presentation 1 PM, LAC 414

16 December (12:30-2:30 PM)

PRESENTATION OF FINAL PROJECTS

last updated: 12/09/02