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SimSat v0.1.4 - model-aware fractional clouds and visible calibration

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@FahrenheitResearch FahrenheitResearch released this 11 Jul 17:59

SimSat v0.1.4 improves visible-satellite cloud coverage, brightness calibration,
source diagnostics, and release reliability across WRF and HRRR inputs.

Highlights:

  • Model-aware fractional-cloud coverage. WRF CLDFRA is preserved where valid and
    contradictory or missing coverage can be repaired with the Xu-Randall diagnostic.
    HRRR wrfnat uses its native 50-level cloud-fraction field. Maximum-overlap
    remapping lets modeled cloud margins fade instead of treating every condensate cell
    as horizontally full.
  • A reviewed visible default profile: cloud optical-depth scale 0.15, neutral
    exposure and ground lift 1.0, highlight knee 0.65, and highlight ceiling
    1.25. The 0.15 value is a cross-case visual calibration; 1.0 remains unscaled
    model extinction, and every control remains overridable.
  • Matching cloud, atmosphere, and display controls in the Rust API, headless CLI,
    Python binding, and SimSat Studio. Fractional clouds can be disabled explicitly to
    restore the conservative legacy full-cell behavior.
  • Cloud higher-order lighting no longer reuses the coarse ground-shadow map as
    volumetric support. Ground shadows retain the coarse map while cloud lighting uses
    native column/depth information.
  • Studio correctness fixes: Clouds Off now produces a genuinely surface-only
    geostationary render; Granulation cannot silently enter an incompatible experimental
    GPU path; restoring shipped display calibration now includes exposure.
  • More useful source provenance, including a targeted warning for NSSL MP18 files whose
    moisture/scalar advection configuration can separate mass and number fields at cloud
    edges.
  • Faster ingestion and cache reads. Field reuse reduces repeated WRF reads, and streamed
    SSB decoding lowers warm-cache time and peak memory without changing decoded values.

Upgrade note:

SSB cache format v5 carries the corrected cloud-fraction semantics. Source-backed
v0.1.3/v4 caches re-ingest once. A cached-only run needs its original WRF/GRIB source
file to upgrade.

The Windows executable is unsigned because the project signing certificate has
expired. If Microsoft Defender SmartScreen appears, choose More info, then
Run anyway, and verify the SHA-256 checksum before launching.

SHA-256 checksums:

  • simsat-studio-v0.1.4-windows-x86_64.exe:
    CD0DDA4F3D9965E8BB71CD49A492B194B21F7CCB2A35A205517C3BD4A7EF7E73
  • simsat-0.1.4-cp38-abi3-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl:
    99AAAE1C0ACC28F98B64614AF1ED375F6F7928D710E1B0D17B04CA4912A57BE8
  • simsat-cli-v0.1.4-linux-x86_64.tar.gz:
    74DE457D5FCC2CA95AD04AD50236597A68E1CAC078E1C0C5E93AFFDE9F1E48EA
  • THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt:
    301F4041951145FCD822A9CECC1A29730ABC7710C081E39F0FD07D6CAF6D3419