Animating AFMIT Satellite Imagery with enhancments (either through brightness or NOAA/NESDIS enhancement curves)


Yes, this is possible.

It is easy to do with the AFMIT animation software. You can dynamically switch between any one of 10 defined enhancements or colorizations--which you can define. All you need to do while ANIMATE.EXE is animating is to press a number key 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 to select or rotate through the current 10 palette curves, which you can define using the View:Analysis:Palette tool.

HOW TO DEFINE THE 10 ENHANCEMENTS USED BY ANIMATE:

They are the same 10 palettes currently defined using the Palette Tool, defined using the standard WeatherTrac Animate software. The assignments for curves 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 are arbitrarily definable using the Palette tool.

HOW TO ACCESS THE PALETTE TOOL:

In WTMAIN(the main WeatherTrac Analysis program), select View:Analysis, then Palette:Adjust, or press the F7 function key. (See the menu at the top of the display.) When the Palette Tool is displayed, the same 10 palettes that are definable/retrievable simply by pressing 'L' 0-9 (or just 0-9 if Load was the last Load/Save mode selected) are the 10 palettes that are available to the Animate software.

HOW TO DEFINE ONE OF THE STANDARD CURVES AS ONE OF THE STANDARD NOAA/NESDIS CURVES:

1] While in View mode, press the SPACEBAR; this will establish a normal greyscale as the base palette.
2] Select View:Analysis:Enance, then select the desired enhancement curve. This will apply the selected enhancement curve to the base greyscale.
3] Select View:Analysis:Palette:Save, then select one of the available 10 palette slots(in the current default.pal file, or in the last selected named .PAL file)in which to save the enhancement curve. Alternately, you can load the Palette Tool (using View:Analysis:Palette:Adjust or F7 function key)and press 'S' and a number from 0-9.
By default, WeatherTrac maintains a 'default' .pal file that keeps track of your 10 custom palettes without you needing to concern yourself about what the .pal file is named. In other words, without ever knowing that your 10 palette selections are stored in something called a .pal file, or that the .pal file is named and is in a directory somewhere, the WeatherTrac software allows you to simply keep defining and using the same 10 numbered palettes in any way you wish, and the same 10 palettes are available in the Animate.exe routine.

HOW DO I DEFINE MORE THAN 10 CUSTOM PALETTE CURVES?

This is easy, but now you must concern yourself with .PAL files, what they are named, where they reside, and which one has been last selected. In theory, you can have thousands of .PAL files, each with 10 custom curves defined, although most of our customers have only one group of 10. It may be reasonable to define at least a Winter and Summer set of useful curves; many customers do at least this. To create a new .PAL file, use the View:Analysis:Palette:File:Save function. (If you care about the directory, specify the target directory using View:Analysis:Palette:File:Directory first. Otherwise, the .PAL file will just be stored in the \WTRAC directory.) This will copy the current .PAL file and store it with a new name, as well as make it the current default .PAL file.

It is recommended that at least one curve in each file, for example, 0, be defined as the normal grey scale, (which can be quickly defined using the palette tool and pressing Spacebar, then saved using the View:Analysis:Palette tool.)

I TRIED THIS, BUT OUR AFMIT ANIMATE SOFTWARE DOES NOT RETRIEVE PALETTES WHEN I PRESS 0,1,2,...9

It's possible that your default palettes are all std greyscale. If the correct palettes are retrieved when the View:Analysis:Palette tool is displayed by pressing 'L' 0,1,2,...9, but not when pressing 0,1,2,...9 while the WEFAX images are animating, contact support@sfwx.com. Indicate your base contact information, AFMIT serial number, and E-mail address, and we will contact you regarding upgrade to the latest release of ANIMATE.EXE (V1.86).