The Weather Symbol Editor is an experimental feature and is not yet released outside the ECMWF. |
The Weather Symbol Editor is a feature that allows you to add annotations to Metview plots that will survive plot updates such as zooming, changes of projection and contouring.
At ECMWF you need to use a development Metview version to try out the editor. The command to run is:
module swap metview/5.14.0-develop metview |
Start uPlot by visualising something, open the sidebar and select the Symbols tab:
Just click on the item in the sidebar, the cursor changes into a cross, then click on the map to add the item.
When you are creating a line, double click to conclude the creation.
When you are creating a polyline or a curve each left-click on the map adds a new point and double-click concludes the creation.
These are special shapes where all the vertices keep their lat-lon positions as the projection changes and the edges between them are sampled linearly in lat-lon space. It means that in cylindrical projection the edges are always straight lines, while in other projections they might be curves. The following table shows how a fitted geo-shape changes as the projection changes from cylindrical to polar north:
| Shape | Cylindrical | Polar North |
|---|---|---|
Geo Line |
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Geo Polyline |
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| Geo Polygon |
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Geo Quad The corner points always form a rectangle in the lat-lon space. |
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In these shapes all the vertices keep their lat-lon positions as the projection changes and they are always connected with a straight line (or with a B-Spline for curves) in all the projections.
The geo rectangle is a special object because it always keeps its rectangular shape. It means that if we zoom, the lat-lon positions of the corner points do not change. However, if we change the projection the lat-lon positions of the corners are automatically adjusted so that the shape will be a rectangle in the new projection.
| Object | Cylindrical | Polar North |
|---|---|---|
| Line |
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| Geo rectangle |
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For these objects only the anchor point (see below) keeps its lat-lon position as the projection changes, while the extent is defined in terms of pixels:
| Object | Cylindrical | Polar North |
|---|---|---|
| Text |
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| Placemark |
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The anchor position depends on the object type:
This is a collection of standard meteorological curves and symbols.
All the WMO weather symbols are available here. They behave like markers, i.e. their centre keeps its lat-lon position when the projection changes and the extent is defined in pixels.
You can use any square shaped SVG or PNG file as a symbol. These have to be added to the System/Symbols folder in your Metview home directory. When you start a uPlot window it scans this directory and adds all the files with .*svg or *.png suffix to the Markers and text group in the Symbols sidebar.
First, make sure you are not in zoom mode, because clicks will be taken as zooms! Single click on the symbol: it gets into edit mode where you can move and resize it and edit its graphical properties from the ribbon editor at the top of the view area. Note that the filled shapes allow you to remove the filling and just keep the outline.
Double click the symbol and the control points become visible. You can drag them now to a new location.
You can add/remove points to a curve when you are in the point edit mode. Right click on a control point and use the actions in the context menu:
It is not yet available.
It is not yet available.
Just use the Export button in the toolbar and choose between the PDF_QT or PNG_QT output formats.
Alternatively, just take a screenshot!
It is not possible at the moment, so you will lose all the objects when you close the uPlot window.
The symbols are preserved as they are between time steps; you cannot define different sets of symbols, or move them between time steps.
If at ECMWF, you should be able to see the Weather Symbol Editor feedback page - please leave any comments there!
