Geo2Grid software package released
All sixteen GOES-16 ABI Bands, and a True-Color image, at 1807 UTC on 11 March 2019, created with Geo2Grid (Click to animate)
SSEC and CIMSS have released a processing package that converts GOES-R Level-1b Radiance files to full-resolution imagery. Geo2Grid is part of the CSPP-Geo package and offers a flexible scriptable method to convert data into imagery. It can be downloaded at this site (Free registration may be required). Documentation is available at that site as well.
System requirements include CentOS 6. The software generates GeoTIFF images at full spatial resolution for the given sector; Full-disk Band 2 (0.64 µm) imagery, and generation of True Color imagery is the biggest test of the system. The self-contained software package is downloaded as a gzipped tarball. After uncompressing and untarring the file, it is ready to go. You can order GOES-R Radiance Files from CLASS and then ftp those data into a directory. Converting the Radiance files into imagery is straightforward:
$GEO2GRID_HOME/bin/geo2grid.sh -r abi_l1b -w geotiff -f /data-ssd/CLASS/CSPPCheck
The ‘r’ flag tells the program what data are being read (you can also read AHI data), the ‘w’ flag describes the output (GeoTIFF is the only option at present) and the ‘f’ flag describes where the downloaded data sits. This command will generate imagery at full resolution for all the files, and that means the Band 2 (the 0.5-km “Red” Band”) file will have different dimensions than teh 1-km Bands 1, 3 and 5, and from the other Bands. A flag is available to force all imagery to the same resolution:
-g MIN –match-resolution
Those two flags will generate a series of files with 2-km resolution. (Note that the long dash in front of ‘match-resolution’ is actually two short dashes; -g MAX would force files with 0.5-km resolution).
It’s also possible to subsect imagery by adding something like
–ll-bbox -105 30 -80 50.
Results from that subsecting is shown below. Note that the first image also includes map information that is added with other flags:
–add-coastlines –coastlines-resolution=h –coastlines-outline=red –add-borders –borders-resolution=h –borders-outline=red
See the documentation for more information.
All sixteen GOES-16 ABI Bands, and a True-Color image, at 1807 UTC on 11 March 2019, zoomed in over the midwestern United States, created with Geo2Grid (Click to animate)
At present, the Geo2Grid software does not annotate the image, although the GeoTIFF files typically have Band and Day/Time information within the filename. Imagery in the animations in this blog has been annotated using ImageMagick, a command like this one:
convert -font helvetica -fill yellow -pointsize 32 -draw “text 20,700 ‘GOES-16 ABI Band 05 1807 UTC 11 March 2019′” GOES-16_ABI_RadC_C05_20190311_180712_GOES-East.gif GOES-16_ABI_RadC_C05_20190311_180712_GOES-Eastannotated.gif
Other software packages can do similar annotation, of course.