GrADS - Grid Analysis and Display System Version 2.0 The OpenGrADS Bundle Distribution --------------------------------- http://opengrads.org GrADS is distributed freely and is copyrighted under the GNU Public License. Please read the COPYRIGHT file for more complete information. This is the "OpenGrADS Bundle" distribution of GrADS containing all the executables, fonts, map datasets, scripts and sample datasets that you need to run GrADS on your computer. Additionally, it contains the OpenGrADS User Defined Extensions that complements GrADS with a number of useful commands and functions. GrADS is primarily developd by the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA), http://grads.iges.org/grads. The OpenGrADS Project (http://opengrads.org) seeks to develop advanced interfaces and extensions based on the main GrADS engine. Installing the OpenGrADS Bundle on Linux/Mac OS X/Unix ------------------------------------------------------ (See below for Windows specific instructions). Move the Contents/ subdirectory to a directory of your choice. Put this directory in your path and you are done. You can even put it on a USB memory stick and take it on the road. You can run it directly from the memory stick without having to set an environment variable. Read on if you need more information. See the next section if you prefer the classic installation method used by COLA. If you have admin privileges it suggested that you install the OpenGrADS Bundle under /opt: % mv Contents /opt/opengrads but you could equally install it under your home directory % mv Contents $HOME/opengrads Next put this installation directory in your path. Assuming you installed it under /opt/opengrads. % export PATH=/opt/opengrads:$PATH C-shell % set path = ( /opt/opengrads $path ) That is! Unless you take this directory tree apart there is no need to set any other environment variable. Alternatively, you can make a symlink of each executable under /opt/opengrads into somewhere in your path, e.g., cd /usr/local/bin ln -s /opt/opengrads/opengrads . The following executables are provided: grads GrADS package, including the OpenGrADS Extensions opengrads same as "grads -CH 1" gribmap Creates an index file that "maps" a GRIB data set for a GrADS descriptor file gribscan Extracts grid info from a GRIB data set grib2scan Extracts grid info from a GRIB2 data set bufrscan Reads BUFR messages and prints out ascii values gxps Converts GrADS metafiles to Postscript gxeps Converts GrADS metafiles to Encapsulated Postscript gxtran Displays metafiles gxyat yet another metafile translator; produces PNG with anti-aliased fonts as well as SVG, PDF and PS. merra starts grads with a graphical user interface customized to access the MERRA datasets, see http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/merra stnmap Maps station data wgrib GRIB-1 utility, see http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/wesley/wgrib.html Notice that *gradsdap* is now obsolete since the OpenGrADS build of *grads* includes OPeNDAP support. Troubleshooting --------------- If you receive an error such as: % grads grads: error while loading shared libraries: libXaw.so.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory for libXaw (or any other library) is because your system lacks this standard shared library. We have include many of these shared libraries used by GrADS under Contents/Linux/Versions/2.0.a5.oga.3/x86_64/libs If it complains about some missing shared, copy each missing shared library from this directory to Contents/Linux/Versions/2.0.a5.oga.3/x86_64/gex and try again from Contents/. IMPORTANT: 1) The wrappers under Contents/ will take care of setting the necessary environment variables. When using the Classic installation below be sure to set LD_LBRARY_PATH (or DYLD_LBRARY_PATH on Mac OS X) such that your system can find these shared libraries. 2) Do *not* copy all the libraries under libs/ to gex/, but only those that your system does not already have. 3) Do *not* replace libraries under /usr/lib or /usr/lib64 unless you know exactly what you are doing. Installation on Windows ----------------------- Using the Automatic Installer ----------------------------- Installing the Windows version of GrADS is very easy. If you downloaded a file called grads-2.0.x-win32_superpack.exe simply run it, answer a few simple questions, and you are good to go (the installer will also automatically set your PATH so that you can run GrADS from the command line window). Using the ZIP File ------------------ If your distribution came in the form of a zip file, simply unzip the distribution file grads-2.0.x.win32_superpack.zip to a place of your choice (e.g., under C:\ or C:\OpenGrADS\) and you are ready to go. Then open Windows Explorer and click on any of the wrapper scripts under OpenGrADS (say, opengrads) and start using it. Setting your PATH This step is only necessary if your distribution came in the form of a ZIP file. You may find convenient adding the GrADS binary directory,e.g., C:\OpenGraDS\Cygwin\Versions\$version\i686 to your PATH. In this example, $version stands for the particular version of the software being installed, say, 2.0.a5.oga.2. The top directory C:\OpenGrADS has also simple VBScript wrapper scripts that can be used to start the main applications. However, there are a large number of utilities that would not be accessible if you do not add the full path above. For changing your PATH click on [Start]/[Control Panel]/[System] Then select the [Advanced] tab and click on the [Environment Variables] button on the lower left. Select Path under -System Variables- and click on the [Edit] button. Do not delete the current contents of your path; simply append a ";" followed by the name of the directory where your GrADS binaries reside. See the "GettingStarted.html" Document for additional information. Windows Notes: ------------- 1) The wrappers under Contents/ are not functional in Windows unless you have perl installed. 2) There are a few VBScript wrappers at the very top directory, above Contents/. Just click on them. 3) However, to keep it fom being too busy wrapper for the many tilities have been omittied; setting your PATH (either automtitically with the ".exe" package or by hand with the ".zip" package) is the recommended way to get to these utilities from the command line. Installation on Linux/Mac OS X/Unix: Classic Method --------------------------------------------------- For downloading regular GrADS releases without the OpenGrAS extensions consult http://grads.iges.org/grads/downloads.html The subdirectory Classic/ has the bin/ and data/ directories that are usually available as two separate downloads from COLA. The executables contained in Classic/bin are typically placed in the directory /usr/local/bin. If you do not have write permission for your /usr/local/bin directory, you can put them in the ~/bin subdirectory of your home directory. mv Classic/bin/* /usr/local/bin For enabling the OpenGrADS Extensions you will need to set two environment variables (using "/usr/local/bin" as an example, replace it with your actual directory name if you install the binaries elsewhere): * Bourne shell and variants (sh, bash, ksh, etc.) % export GA2UDXT=/usr/local/bin/gex/udxt % export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/bin/gex:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH * C-shell (csh, tcsh): % setenv GA2UDXT /usr/local/bin/gex/udxt % setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/local/bin/gex:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH Omit the last $LD_LIBRARY_PATH if you do not have this variable already defined. Also, for Mac OS X the environment variable name is "DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH". On Windows, the gex/ directory should be added to your PATH. The subdirectory Classic/data contains the GrADS fonts and maps data sets needed to run GrADS. It can be downloaded from http://grads.iges.org/grads/downloads.html. The contents of Classic/Data are typically placed in the directory /usr/local/lib/grads, the default location for these files. If you do not have write permission for /usr/local/lib/grads, you can place the files elsewhere, but you must also change the environment variable GADDIR so the GrADS executables will know where to find these files. mv Classic/data/* dirname setenv GADDIR dirname (If dirname is not /usr/local/lib/grads) See the Troubleshooting section above if you get an error message such as % grads grads: error while loading shared libraries: libXaw.so.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Documentation and Additional Information ---------------------------------------- Detailed HTML documentation is now included in this distribution: Contents/Documentation.html You can also consult the on-line documentation available from: OpenGrADS Website: http://opengrads.org GrADS Website: http://grads.iges.org/grads