CodesUI is a graphical user interface for ecCodes to inspect GRIB and BUFR messages.
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codesUI is still work-in-progress. |
Starting codesUI
The command to start the application on Leap42 and OpenSUSE13.1 workstations at ECMWF iscan be started up with the following command:
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module load codes_ui codes_ui file1 file2 ... |
where the specified files can be either GRIB or BUFR files (wildcard characters are allowed in the file names). If no input files are specified codesUi does CodesUI will not start up.
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Please note that codesUI can only work in either GRIB or BUFR mode. The actual mode is determined by the type of the first successfully read message from the input files.
The structure of the codesUI interface
The structure of the user interface is similar in both the GRIB and BUFR mode: it is made up of five main panels.
These panels are as follows:
File information panel
This panel is located at the top and displays detailed information about the currently loaded file.
It can be shown/hidden with the
button in the toolbar.
File list panel
This panel is located on the left and contains the list of input files
Click on a given file in the list to load it into codesUi (only one file can be loaded at a time).
To add a new file to the list use the File → Add file ... menu (or press Ctrl+N).
The file list panel can be shown/hidden with the
button in the toolbar. Alternatively it can be closed with the button next to its title.
Message list panel
This panel contains the list of the messages in the currently loaded file and it is located in the middle of the user interface.
Message content panel
This is the area right of the Message list panel to show the metadata and data of the currently selected message. Its structure and contents is different in GRIB and BUFR mode.
Log panel
This panel at the bottom of the interface shows the log messages.
It can be shown/hidden with the
button in the toolbar.
Inspecting BUFR messages
Key profiles
When a BUFR file is loaded codesUI scans the header of all the messages and displays the message list in the message list panel.
In this list a set of ecCodes BUFR header keys are displayed for each message. The column heading only displays label but we get detailed information of the actual key from the tooltip when hovering over the table heading.
The header keys are grouped into key profiles. When a new key profile is selected in the Key profile combobox in the toolbar:
codesUI rescans all the messages and re-populates the message list according to the new key profile.
Key profiles can be added, removed and edited from the Key profile manager dialogue (Profiles → Manage profiles ... menu):
The default key profile
By default a profile called "Default" is loaded with the following contents:
This profile is actually a copy of the System:Default profile that, in contrast to any other profiles, as a fail-safe solution cannot be edited.
Subset navigation
A BUFR message can contain multiple subsets in either compressed or uncompressed format. The actual number of subsets is defined by the numberOfSubsets key in the message header. Whether a muti-subset message is compressed or not is determined by the compressedData key (also in the header).
No subsets
When numberOfSubsets = 1 the message does not have subsets and the message panel header looks like this.
Uncompressed subsets
When numberOfSubsets >= 1 and compressedData = 0 1 the message contains uncompressed subsets. The mode to navigate through these subsets is defined in the Settings menu:
By default this option is unchecked meaning that the data dump shows all the subsets in one go like this:
On the other hand, when this option is checked the subsets can be navigated through with the Subset interface in the message panel header. In this way the data dump only shows the values of the selected subset. This is how our message looks like for subset 1:
and this how it looks like for subset 2:
We can start CodesUI straight in GRIB mode like this:
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codes_ui -g [grib_file_1 grib_file_2 ...] |
or in BUFR mode like this:
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codes_ui -b [bufr_file_1 bufr_file_2 ...] |
In these modes it is not necessary to specify any input files: CodesUI will start up loading the last viewed file of the given type.