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BRAT - Broadview Radar Altimetry Toolbox README | |
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == = | |
Overview | |
== == == == | |
The Broadview Radar Altimetry Toolbox (BRAT) is a collection of | |
tools and tutorial documents designed to facilitate the processing | |
of radar altimetry data. BRAT is able to handle most distributed | |
radar altimetry data formats, providing support for ingesting, | |
processing, editing (to a certain extent), generating statistics, | |
visualising and exporting the results. | |
A full user manual for BRAT is available in the file | |
brat_user_manual.pdf in the 'doc' directory of the BRAT | |
distribution or installation.The user manual contains all the | |
necessary information about installing and running BRAT. | |
This README file contains the version history for BRAT, a list of | |
known issues, and any other last - minute added or updated | |
information that can not( yet ) be found in the user manual.In | |
the case of conflicting information, this README file is | |
authoritative. | |
Known Issues | |
============ | |
- Window Buttons in Gnome Desktop | |
The software recognizes Gnome when when running in a Linux desktop | |
and sets the appropriate properties for the minimize, maximize and | |
close buttons to be displayed in view windows. However, in Debian 8 | |
it was verified that additonal configuration steps might be necessary, | |
at the system level, for those buttons to be dislayed. | |
This issue, which affects not only BRAT but other GUI applications | |
as well, can be solved by running | |
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout appmenu:minimize,maximize,close | |
and by calling gnome-tweak-tool from the command line and then | |
selecting "Windows", "Titlebar Buttons", and clicking "ON" for the | |
maximize and minimize buttons. | |
- Spurious error messages about map projections | |
The first time a view is displayed in a BRAT GUI session, it is | |
possible that messages like | |
"ERROR 6: EPSG PCS/GCS code 54003 not found in EPSG support files." | |
"Is this a valid EPSG coordinate system?” | |
are printed to the console. These messages are not issued by BRAT | |
itself and the reasons why they originate have no consequences on | |
BRAT functionality. They can be safely disregarded. | |
- Troubleshooting BRAT startup issues caused by OpenGL check failures | |
By default, when the BRAT GUI application starts, some tests are executed | |
to evaluate the system's OpenGL capabilities. The user can then be alerted | |
if some 3D views (3D plots or the globe) have limitations or are not | |
displayed at all. In some systems, the Qt framework is not always able to | |
recover from these test failures, and the application crashes without | |
being able to circumvent the error and/or display any warnings to the user. | |
If BRAT cannot start, this is the most common reason, namely in virtual | |
machines. To disable these default checks, and allow BRAT to start | |
nevertheless, please see the BRAT Software User Manual, section “3.7. | |
Troubleshooting OpenGL issues”. | |
Version History | |
== == == == == == == | |
4.2.1 - May 2018 | |
-------------------- | |
Features added in this version: | |
- Dimensions consistency check of all operation parameters | |
- Prevent execution and display full information when dimensions check fails | |
- Correction of map distance tool for all latitudes and projections | |
- Improved visualization of X axis, supporting multiple dimensions | |
- Support user defined variables for filtering parameters | |
- Support information accessible from about box | |
- Updated licensing information | |
4.2.0 - October 2017 | |
-------------------- | |
Features added in this version: | |
- Upgrade of supported Linux version to Debian 8.x | |
- Upgrade of supported Python version to 3.4 | |
- Area coordinates can now be manually inserted, besides using the mouse | |
- View maps base layers can now be changed at runtime | |
- New application settings: GDAL and WMS raster layer providers | |
- Support for new variant of Generic Netcdf aliases | |
- Improved map zoom | |
Corrections of all bugs and implementation of feature improvements | |
reported in version 4.1.0 | |
4.1.0 - April 2017 | |
-------------------- | |
Features added in this version: | |
- RADS datasets support | |
- Automatic synchronization with RADS server | |
- ASCII export gridded view support | |
- Tutorial videos included in Help | |
- Support for temporal interpolation when generating grids | |
- Coastal and Inland Waters Altimetry formulas | |
- New support for products: | |
- Sentinel 3 L1A Products data | |
- Sentinel 3 L1BS Products data | |
- Envisat Reprocessed data | |
- Geosat GDR data | |
- ESA River and Lake Hydrology data | |
- ESA River and Lake Altimetry data | |
- ERS Reaper Products | |
- Jason-1 netcdf products | |
Corrections of all reported bugs in version 4.0.0 | |
4.0.0 - October 2016 | |
-------------------- | |
Changes for this version: | |
- Implementation of all incomplete features in 4.0.0 beta version | |
- Solution of all known problems reported with 4.0.0 beta version | |
4.0.0 beta - July 2016 | |
----------------------- | |
Changes for this version: | |
- Complete redesign and re-implementation of GUI applications and the concept of simpler data handling | |
- Feature added to allow the usage of Python scripts within the data expressions | |
- Feature to allow visualization of tracks when selecting the data | |
- Feature to allow definition of geographical filter via interaction with map | |
- Add plots export into image files in different formats (GIF, PNG, and PS) | |
- Improve background in vectorial base and support raster base background | |
- Improvement of display of vector plots in both visual display and performance of the plotting | |
- Improve the memory usage for displaying images allowing at least to display 70MB images with 1GB of RAM | |
- Improve date display to allow human readable format (e.g. yyyy/mm/dd) | |
- Inclusion of plot legends in saved images | |
- Addition of histogram plots | |
- Addition of linear fit to data in 2D plots with show of regression equation | |
Known problems with the V4.0.0-beta release: | |
- Contours: | |
Contours are only available for spectrograms (by selecting "Contour" options inside "Data Options" tab of | |
the generated View). In the full release it will also be available for the Maps and Globe views type. | |
- Vector Plots: | |
Vector plots are currently not supported and will be implemented for the full release. | |
- Log Scale: | |
Logarithmic scale is currently not supported and will be implemented for the full release. | |
- Colour Table: | |
Currently it is not possible to select a custom colour table, and for this reason, for both type of plots, | |
spectrogram and map, a default colour table is used. To be implemented for the full release a set of | |
predefined colour tables. | |
- Sampling and Filter: | |
Sampling is the equivalent for the old "Set resolution and filter" feature. Currently this is not customizable | |
and each time a plot of the type z=f(x,y) is computed, default values are used for the maximum and | |
minimum of latitude (90 and -90 degrees respectively), maximum and minimum (180 and -180 degrees | |
respectively) of longitude and a step of 1/3 degrees in each axis. Setting of the parameters to be | |
implemented for full release. | |
- Scheduler: | |
Scheduler feature allows to postpone one or more operations, however this is not implemented yet, and | |
will be available for full release. | |
- Saving plot results in an image file: | |
This feature would allow the user to save the Plot results in an image file (such as JPEG, PNG or TIFF), | |
however was not implemented, and will be available for full release. | |
- Aliases: | |
Aliases are short names or unified names for data fields. There are NetCDF files read by Brat that do not | |
have pre-defined aliases. This will implemented for the full release. | |
- Export Operation: | |
This option allows the user to export the current operation data to different formats (such as ASCII, | |
NetCDF and GeoTIFF). This feature will be for the full release. | |
- Show Info Button: | |
Provides information about the original units (the ones defined in the data products) and the units used | |
during computation or selection. This feature is not available yet and will be implemented for full release. | |
- Faulty Map Projection: Nearest sided perspective: | |
This projection is currently not working properly. | |
3.3.0 - September 2015 | |
-------------------- | |
- Correction of unhandled exception caused by not updading NetCDF | |
file to reflect GUI changes. | |
- Ensured build and run compatibility with CentOS 6 64 bits. | |
- Enabled by default side-by-side installation of different BRAT | |
versions and processor architectures on the same machine, without | |
overwriting each other. | |
- Updated available formulas (new formulas.ini file). | |
- GUI applications display version and architecture, allowing easy | |
runtime identification of different instances on the same system. | |
- Python API examples can run immediately after installation, | |
without further configuration actions like defining BRAT_DATA_DIR. | |
- Correction of BRATHL 3.1.0 bug, caused by buffer overruns when | |
reading a large list of files. | |
- Correction of bugs caused by wxWidgets upgrade: | |
- the Log tab in the application BratGui loosed its graphical | |
layout and stability when resized; | |
- the context menus of the tree widgets did not execute the | |
expected actions and did not present all menu items. | |
- Enabled C++11 support in g++ (Linux). | |
- Windows XP support enabled by default in 32 bit binaries. | |
- Update to NetCDF version 4.3.3.1. | |
- Inclusion of new libraries, in integration with NetCDF 4 and CODA 2.13, | |
deployed along with BRAT with their respective tools: | |
- HDF5 version 1.8.15, | |
- curl version 7.43 ( only in Windows ), | |
- SZip version 2.1. | |
- Extensions of BRATHL code to process NetCDF 4 and HDF 5, including new | |
NetCDF data types. | |
- Creation of a brathl dynamic module (brathl_module) encapsulating | |
all BRATHL functionality to enable (autonomous) load and interface | |
with Python. | |
- New Python API to the BRATHL library, with examples. | |
- Port to 64 bit of BRAT and all its dependencies, including | |
- VTK 5.6.0 adjustments to enable 64 bit, | |
- port to 64 bit of the BRATHL library, | |
- port to 64 bit of the BRAT command line tools, | |
- port to 64 bit of the BRAT GUI applications. | |
- Updated wxWidgets to version 3.0.2. | |
- Replaced Carbon by Cocoa framework in MAC OS X related code and build settings. | |
- Updated BRAT GUI applications and libraries, with VTK support, as required | |
by new wxWidgets version. | |
3.2.0 - June 2015 | |
------------------ | |
Transitional release, preparing version 3.3.0 and focused on | |
- update of build settings and source code to support current versions of | |
operating systems, compilers and build systems in all supported platforms | |
(Windows, Linux, Mac OS X); | |
- update of build settings and source code to prepare the port to 64 bit | |
architectures; | |
- update to CODA version 2.13; | |
- update to BitRock InstallBuilder version 15.1.0; | |
- minor bug corrections. | |
3.1.0 - March 2012 | |
------------------ | |
- Add an "aliases" capability, that enables users to use the same names for | |
the most frequent data fields. | |
- Add an index (brat_index_data) for data with a "time" dimension | |
(i.e. not available for some data, like grids). | |
- Add filters algorithms (four different filters have been implemented), | |
working along-track or on grids. | |
- The call to the geostrophic velocity algorithms is modified to use the | |
aliases for longitude and latitude, to make things simpler for users. | |
- Updated CODA to version 2.3.1. | |
- Internal (CODA) product type names for ERS product types have been aligned | |
with ESA naming convention (OPR_pass_file -> ALT.OPR, WAP -> ALT.WAP) | |
- Updated CryoSat product format (codadef) to be in line with upcoming | |
L1 PFS v4.9 and L2 PFS v2.8. Main changes impacting BRAT are: | |
- The field for the main dataset in the FDM product is now called | |
'siral_l2_fdm_mds' instead of 'siral_l2_fdo_mds' | |
- usr_corr field now has a scale factor of 1e-15 instead of 1e-7 | |
- Fixed locating of User Manual document when selected from GUI. | |
3.0.1 - May 2011 | |
---------------- | |
- Bugs fixed : | |
* The Loess filters computation were not applied if input files were netCDF | |
files. | |
* Fixed problem where incorrect lines were drawn for worldmap plots on | |
Windows due to rounding issues near the projection boundaries. | |
* Fixed issue where a 'marque' (box with dotted lines) could appear in a | |
worldmap plot. | |
* Included MSVC 2010 DLLs to BRAT IDL and MATLAB directories on Windows to | |
prevent usage problems of these interfaces. | |
3.0 - February 2011 | |
------------------- | |
- Added algorithms computation module (geostrophic velocity algorithms). | |
- Added batch processing : BratScheduler enables to delay the execution of an | |
operation. | |
- Added support for Topex-Poseidon and ERS RA waveform products. | |
- It is now possible to drag & drop files into the Dataset panel. | |
- Several improvements to BratDisplay: | |
* the center/zoom functionality for worldplots has been greatly improved. | |
* the number of latitude/longitude grid lines will now increase/decrease | |
depending on the zoom level. | |
* latitude/longitude grid lines now come with a text label showing the | |
associated latitude/longitude value of the parallel/meridian. | |
* the 'animation bar' is now shown by default if the plot can be animated. | |
* Added support for new projections: Orthographic, Near-Sided Perspective, | |
and Stereographic. | |
* The save directory for image export will now be remembered for consecutive | |
calls to export. | |
* Added support to visualize vector plots. | |
- Improve 'ascii export' : 'ascii export' is able to export either the result | |
of the operation (default) or only dumps the expression data. In the | |
previous version of Brat, 'ascii export' only dumped the expression data. | |
- Updated CODA to version 1.5. | |
- BRAT now requires VTK 5.6. | |
- Bugs fixed : | |
* Statistics computation are not converted to wanted unit (set by the user). | |
* Display Expression Properties for a field were not updated properly in the | |
Views tab of BratGui on Mac OS X. | |
* The BRAT installer did now work on KDE SUSE 11 systems. | |
2.1.1 - June 2010 | |
----------------- | |
- Bugs fixed : | |
* Regression issue in 2.1.0 that broke support of high resolution and | |
waveform data for ENVISAT RA-2 and ERS RA products. | |
* Possible loss of field names in expressions that contain aliases | |
* Wrong SSH formula for Topex product (SSH_TOPEX) (since BRAT 2.0.0): | |
'Topex dual-frequency ionospheric (Iono_Cor) correction' should be used | |
instead of 'Ionospheric correction from DORIS (Iono_Dor). | |
* When executing an operation within Brat GUI, expression was sometimes | |
reset if it contained a syntax error. | |
* For Topex products, the date in Brat output was wrong if the Brat | |
operation contained "high resolution" fields (data). | |
2.1.0 - March 2010 | |
------------------ | |
- Updated RA2 product format specifications (codadef) to bring them in line | |
with the new Vol14 4/C product format specifications document. | |
- Improvements to the CRYOSAT product format definitions (codadef) file to | |
bring it in line with the latest official specification documents. | |
- Updated CODA to version 1.3.3. | |
- Bugs fixed : | |
* The Matlab API 'brathl_ReadData' could crash depending on how parameters | |
were passed to the API. | |
* BratDisplay could crash due to an invalid pointer. | |
* Incorrect fieldname for Export if 'Only dump expressions' was selected. | |
* Fixed column header for 'date as period' values in ascii export. | |
2.0.3 - November 2009 | |
--------------------- | |
- Bugs fixed : | |
* An uninstall of BRAT would delete the entire installation | |
directory (/usr/local by default on Linux when installed as | |
root), including non-BRAT files and directories. | |
* BratExportAscii : issue with the FIELD_FORMAT parameter | |
which is not taken into account from the export parameters' file | |
(Notice that FIELD_FORMAT parameter is never set by using BratGui | |
and have to be set manually in the parameters' file). | |
* Get rid of 'RPM' error messages after a root install on | |
Linux. | |
2.0.2 - November 2009 | |
-------------------- | |
- Bugs fixed : | |
* On Windows, BRAT could be looking on the wrong drive for its data files | |
* Fixed a few potential memory leak and memory corruption problems | |
* Uninstaller on Windows will now properly remove all files | |
2.0.1 - June 2009 | |
----------------- | |
- Bugs fixed : | |
* Compilation errors under Linux X64 | |
* BratDisplay sometimes crashes on close. | |
* BratGui sometimes crashes when refreshing the display panel | |
* Some minor issues. | |
- Improve 'ascii export' report (from Netcdf products). | |
2.0.0 - April 2009 | |
------------------ | |
- This update is a major upgrade of the software, including a Mac OS X | |
version, River&Lake data reading capability, full waveform processing and | |
plotting, new plotting capabilities, export in GeoTiff, including a Google | |
Earth export feature, easier export in ASCII, a rethinking of the Graphical | |
User Interface and of the software packaging, to make it easier to use. | |
1.1.1 - June 2008 | |
---------------------- | |
- Bug fixed : In Brat Gui, Loess filter is never applied. Bug | |
appears in version 1.1.0. | |
1.1.0 - December 2007 | |
---------------------- | |
- Bug fixed : sometimes the toolbox (GUI) crashes when you | |
delete an operation. | |
- Add Jason-2 data processing. | |
- Add 'General' NetCdf data processing. | |
- Built under linux with GCC 4.2.2 (new warnings) | |
1.0.2 - March 2007 | |
------------------ | |
- Bug fixed : In X/Y plot display, sometimes the toolbox | |
crashes when moving the graph after having modified the font | |
size. | |
- Disable 'barn' unit. | |
1.0.1 - December 2006 | |
--------------------- | |
- Add high-resolution fields processing. | |
- Installation process and package creation enhanced. | |
1.0.0 | |
----- | |
- First released version. | |
Further information | |
=================== | |
For software upgrades, documentation updates and the on-line | |
tutorial, including use cases go to: | |
http://earth.esa.int/brat/ or http://www.altimetry.info/ | |
BRAT has been developed under contract with ESA. |