search

wradlib / wradlib

weather radar data processing - python package
https://wradlib.org
MIT License
267 stars 82 forks source link

How to construct the wradlib core datastructure manually? #679

Open Ockenfuss opened 2 months ago

Ockenfuss commented 2 months ago

Is there any documentation on how to construct the wradlib core datastructure manually?

Motivation

While there are many examples on how to read common radar formats into wradlib, not all real world data follows these conventions (e.g. older datasets, modeled data, ...) In those cases, the data need to be transferred manually into the structure required by wradlib. For end users, it would be useful to have an overview of the (minimal) set of coordinates and attributes a dataset or datatree needs to have to be quickly usable within wradlib.

Example

I am aiming for a "Data Model" page in the wradlib general docs, optionally accompanied by a tutorial in the IO Tutorial section. Ideally, each point in this page should also quickly define the necessary format, unit, etc. or link to a detailed specification. For example, within the wradlib documentation, I can't find an explanation of the sweep_mode parameter: What does it specify and which keywords are allowed for it?

Example Documentation: Data Model

In order to use the functions provided wradlib, any DataArray/Dataset with radar data needs to have the following properties: Coordinates:

Broader scope

Alternatively, wradlib could also link to the xradar package, where a brief version of such a page already seems to exist. Since the xradar data model closely resembles the Cfradial2 format, this is also related to the question whether Cfradial2/FM301 example files are already available somewhere.

Please excuse me if some of those resources exist and I have overseen them!

kmuehlbauer commented 2 months ago

Thanks @Ockenfuss for writing this down.

I think, wradlib should link to the radar page. And xradar should show some examples of creating the objects.