GRLevel3 Geek

KDOT troubles

2010-12-18T15:39:00.004-06:00

The Kansas Department of Transportation website is having some kind of issue today. The site would barely open for me this morning and continues to be sluggish at the time of this post. This poses a major problem for my Web cam project script, since it uses most of the pictures from KDOT's site.

I started the script 5 minutes ago and it is just now two-thirds done. Usually it only takes my computer a couple of minutes tops to finish the entire thing.

Obviously this issue is a bit out of my hands so hopefully the fine folks at KDOT get the site back up to full speed soon.

If you are trying to run the script and just want to skip past one of the KDOT cameras, hit (Ctrl-C) and it will ask you "Terminate Batch job (Y/N)?". Hit Y then (Return) and the entire script will stop. N (Return) it will advance to the next URL2File line.

An early Thanksgiving treat

2010-11-16T22:24:00.003-06:00

Here in my (ever-diminishing) spare time tonight I've managed to do a little updating. It appears the changes are working just fine...if you see anything out of the ordinary, let me know.

Check the "WebCam Project Links" on the right hand side of the page to get the newest versions.

It's Fit to Print

2010-09-13T09:51:00.013-05:00

I've been working on this update for the better part of a month now, tweaking and editing until I finally got it right. I appreciate your patience as I'm very excited about this update! Not only are things cleaned up, but there are a TON of new cameras I've found in Kansas. The Kansas Turnpike Authority (KTA) recently added 9 new cameras late this Summer. The web service "Kanoklacountry.com" has added a number cameras to the mix as well.

As I mentioned in a post this past Spring, Win 7 behaves a little differently than XP when it deals with simple file changes in the "Program Files" directory. To clear that hurdle, I've set up a completely new directory on my C: drive that simply stores all of my GRLevel data. Here's what it looks like in the code for the placefile:

If you'd rather keep your old directory intact, please note you'll have to change the directory listing (circled in red) from "C:\GRLevel3 Data\WebCam Project" to whatever you used in the past. I'm not going to publish two versions of the placefile. It's hard enough to keep track of one file, let alone multiple versions!

As always, the updated files are on the right side of the blog, under

The Live GRLevel3 Webcam Project Links.

Look for kscambat.txt and kscampf.txt. As always, if you have any questions...please let me know!

Look who's back

2010-08-02T22:05:00.003-05:00

Holy crap! I haven't updated this thing since March? That's what happens when the severe weather season kicks in. While that's come and gone, family duties and projects have my plate full even as the new school year draws closer.

Well, I haven't stopped working on this. Sunday I did an inventory of the working cameras in the WebCam project and it was pathetic. Less than half were working at the time. That number is now much better with KDOT back on-line. (None of their cameras were working then).

I have found a ton of new cameras too, some from the Kansas Turnpike and from other sources. I have started the preliminary work of getting that data incorporated into the scripts. Hopefully we'll debut that before too long.

And you won't have to wait until March either...

Out like a Lion

2010-03-31T09:58:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Scott Roberts for the tips on my Windows 7 issues. Anytime you make changes to the "Program Files" directory, Windows 7 will prompt you. To get around that, I've had to move all of my GRLevel3 data (for webcam images, placefiles, etc) to its own directory outside of the Program Files folder. I also have to move URL2File out of the Windows\system32 directory. The bad thing about that is now you must have URL2File in each data directory for my batch files to run right.

So, now I have a separate directory called "GRLevel3 Data" on my C: drive and I've moved the "places", "SPC" and other directories to this folder. I also made a "WebCam Project" folder to keep all of this information separate and organized. And yes, there is a copy of URL2File in each of these directories.

The good news is that if you don't have Windows 7 or (probably) Vista (untested on this operating system) and still are running XP SP2/SP3 then you won't have any changes to make. However the newer system will need this change to work properly. Down the road though, I won't be writing scripts for 2 or 3 different operating systems, just one to run on all.

Clear as mud?

Welcome to March!!

2010-03-01T08:21:00.002-06:00

Meteorological Spring has arrived. Yes, March Madness is here....I love this month!!

If you haven't seen it, GR3 ver 1.70 is out and it's a great improvement with the addition of high-resolution L3 data. Awesome stuff! This is a fantastic addition for the upcoming severe weather season.

I've been tinkering around with a few random projects in the last couple of weeks. Not the fog channel stuff though but some other things. While I'm having no problem with it working on my Windows XP machine, my new Windows 7 box is giving me some grief. Every time I run URL2File within my scripts on this new machine, I get a prompt box for every line of code (Do you want Windows to make changes to this machine?). I thought I had all of the proper boxes and settings checked to let this run but something is amiss. I'm not sure what I'm missing but it's frustrating to say the least! And until I figure it out, I'm reluctant to release any new improvements/additions to my projects.

Anyone have any ideas?

Into February

2010-02-04T08:36:00.002-06:00

No new updates to tell you about this morning. I haven't come across any new Kansas web cams in the last few weeks while searching the web. If you stumble across one, please let me know. I'm always eager to add more to the camera scripts.

A little side project I've dabbled with here lately is adding fog channel imagery to GR3. We have had a ton of fog around Wichita over the last few weeks. Obviously, that presents some forecasting headaches so if it's out there, I want to know.

The problem with the imagery that's available on the web either ends early (like around 5:15am local time) or it has some kind of time stamp in the URL, making it impossible to look for a static address to put in the placefile. I'll keep on this and hope to come up with a solution soon.

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T07:42:00.003-06:00

Whew...at last! We're set to close the book on 2009 and over the past couple of days, I'm closing the book on my latest update. I've (finally!) got the KDOT cameras added to the fray and have added/tweaked others too. Thanks for your patience on this!

On the right hand part of the page, scroll down until you see "kscambat.txt" and "kscampf.txt".

Since a few of the KDOT cameras are co-located with each other (i.e. @ Walker along I-70) I've kept a handful of them out of the scripts. Otherwise, don't be surprised to see a few of them down from time to time. It just happens with technology.

An interesting stat: we're up to 91 cameras now officially in my scripts! That's quite an improvement since the project began in late summer 2006. Hopefully, we'll add a few more in the coming year.

If I have any New Year's resolution concerning this blog, it would be to update it more often. And that's what I'll try to do. From the GRLevel3Geek: Happy New Year!

Stuff in the Queue

2009-10-15T10:30:00.002-05:00

I was very excited to learn that KDOT has finally made available 25 new web cameras along I-70. This information is available on their website . I'm quite busy with a number of projects at home and at work, so I'll be working on adding this data to the web cam project as time allows. I'd like to turn it around faster but I'm afraid that won't happen.

Stay tuned for more updates...

Major Housecleaning

2009-07-02T08:45:00.003-05:00

It had been a few weeks since I went though the entire list of Kansas camera sites and I was disappointed to see so many cameras down (16). It's not uncommon to see some of the school sites down during the summer as there's nobody at the school on a regular basis. But it wasn't just some school sites though. I did a little house cleaning and got things back in order.

Unfortunately, I have no new cameras to add. I did my usual search with Google for "Kansas web cams" and "Kansas construction cams"....even used the new site "bing.com" that I've seen advertised. No luck. I think I've pretty much given up on KDOT getting their site up anytime soon. Hopefully they will prove me wrong. It's a downer when they advertised it coming on-line "early First Quarter 2009" and we're just into 3Q now.

No News is Bad News

2009-06-01T20:28:00.003-05:00

I wish I had some great excuse to explain the lack of updates recently but I don't. Besides work, I honestly haven't spent as much time on the computer. That's not a bad thing though as the weather has been so nice here over the last couple of weeks, only turning active in Kansas today after 4 days of 90 degree weather.

I haven't located any new cameras recently with my typical Google searches on the web. And I'm not holding my breath on updates from KDOT concerning their web cameras they've been promising since the first quarter of 2009. They keep saying they're working on problems with their page but so far nothing new from their camp.

Something new

2009-04-25T03:38:00.001-05:00

I managed to get an update to the Kansas scripts yesterday to fix some broken links and the like.

Still nothin' from KDOT. (sigh)

No foolin'....some updates!

2009-04-01T16:40:00.004-05:00

It was a rather crazy month of March at work, as I changed shifts for a few weeks while we trained on a completely new weather system. Needless to say, I had little time for extra stuff.

Thankfully, the new system has debuted and I'm back on my normal shift. With that, I'm happy to report some updates to the Kansas scripts this afternoon. I added one new camera, an old one returned and I weeded out some non-functional cameras.

Still waiting on KDOT though...no updates on their situation.

You want new cameras?

2009-03-09T12:46:00.004-05:00

I learned recently from KDOT that their new cameras won't be ready until further notice as they continue to tackle some unresolved issues. I really hope they are up before severe weather starts to kick in big time!

While that's a bummer, I'm happy to report a couple of new cameras, one in Dodge City and in Independence. Plus, I found some older cameras have returned so I made a pretty sizable update to the Kansas camera scripts today. I've tested them and so far everything seems OK. Please report any problems though as I hurried like hell to get them done before shoving off to work today!

I know..I'm running behind

2009-02-14T20:17:00.004-06:00

Sorry GRLevel3Geek followers...I'm way behind on updates. I've been a little busy with family commitments as we had a death in the family earlier this month.

I promise I'll have some new updates here soon...just wanted you know why things haven't been posted recently.

Have a good weekend,
Rodney

We've got a Mission

2009-01-12T20:55:00.002-06:00

Who knew hanging out in the crawl space and on the roof of my house could be so much fun?! I've been pretty busy the last few days installing cables and the like for my nearly-completed "shack", as in a "radio shack". I've been an amateur radio operator since 1992 . But even with that on my plate and family stuff, I have managed to do some major detective work too concerning web cameras across Kansas.

I stumbled across the "Kansas Communities on the Web" site earlier this week. It's like me--not particularly flashy--but it gets right to the point: providing links to the majority of Kansas communities on the web. So, like the Little Einsteins, I was on a mission: to search for new web cameras possibly located on each city's web page. The tedious work paid off: I found a camera at the Eisenhower Center in Abilene and one in Derby where a new library is being built. In addition, I found a camera in Haysville too. Unfortunately, it hasn't updated in over a month.

Time permitting, I will be adding the cameras to the scripts. I have already jotted down the coordinates via Google Earth.

More good news on the camera front. KDOT is still good to go for an "early 2009" debut of 25 additional web cameras along I-70. It would be great to get them before the end of the month...fingers crossed.

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T09:39:00.006-06:00

I hope you're having a great holiday season. As we get ready to close out 2008, I finally managed enough time to update the Kansas camera scripts. I'm waiting for a whole slew of cameras from KDOT to come on line any day now, hopefully in the next month (is that too much to ask?). That will be exciting to say the least!

I've noticed a few of the WeatherBug/InstaCams down...not uncommon during the extended holiday break with nobody at school to maintain them. I won't remove them from the scripts at this point though and hope they return next week when schools are back in session.

Overall, it's been a rather productive year for the site. In addition to all of the Kansas camera scripts I continue to update, I added the Profiler and Upper Air data scripts in March. September brought the "Poor Man's Mesoanalysis", which was really fun.

And as this gift to you for the holidays, here's a couple of other scripts I threw together at some point during the year but never released. Maybe some of you will have a use for it, perhaps not. The first one is the Westar Outages Placefile. (Westar is a utility company that covers much eastern Kansas):

---------
;Westar Outages Placefile

Refresh: 5
Title: Westar Service Territory Outages

Image: https://www-11.westarenergy.com/outagemaps/CountyMaps/ServiceTerritory.JPG
36.82076, -99.05001, 0, 1
40.22578, -99.07336, 0, 0
40.10921, -93.08062, 1, 0
36.82076, -99.05001, 0, 1
40.10921, -93.08062, 1, 0
36.72185, -93.31198, 1, 1
End:
---------

This second one is for the Houston LDAR Network Realtime Data Display. Unfortunately, the network is down so it really doesn't serve much purpose until Texas A&M fixes the inoperative sensors around Houston.

---------
;Houston LDAR Lightning Placefile

Refresh: 2

Title: Houston LDAR Network Realtime Data Display
Image: http://atmo.tamu.edu/ciams/ldar/images/network.png
27.96037, -97.32729, 0, 1
31.41292, -97.39441, 0, 0
31.42265, -93.45268, 1, 0
27.96037, -97.32729, 0, 1
31.42265, -93.45268, 1, 0
27.98037, -93.48268, 1, 1
End:
---------

Happy New Year!

New KDOT cameras...later

2008-11-22T15:53:00.001-06:00

I got disappointing news earlier this week. I was hoping the rest of the new KDOT cameras would come on-line in November but in a press release, KDOT said it would be "early 2009." Oh well, they have been installed. Said KDOT: "25 new camera have been installed along I-70 between Goodland and Topeka; I-135 near Salina; and on US-75 in North Topeka. These are in addition to the existing eight camera views that are updated every 15 minutes and shown on the 511 Web site."

That's a good thing for travelers and the camera scripts.

Lil' Update

2008-11-06T14:25:00.004-06:00

I just posted a very minor update to the Kansas camera scripts today. One camera in particular has been down for the last couple of weeks so I removed it.

Otherwise, I'm rather busy with work and family commitments so these updates may be rather infrequent for the time being. Thanks...

Profiler status updated

2008-10-13T15:15:00.005-05:00

I mentioned last Tuesday that I would be updating and streamlining the Profiler scripts once the data was back up on UCAR's site. I noticed the return this morning at work, so this afternoon we got down to business.

The scripts are nearly identical to the upper air scripts but instead they'll display 8 profiler sites in/around Kansas. Please refer to the "profiler.txt" placefile and the "profilerUCARbat.txt" batch file in the "Profiler/Upper Air Project" section on the right hand side of the page.

As always, there's incredible flexibility built in with this application. You can easily take out a site that doesn't apply to your needs and plug in the appropriate one. Just be sure to change the URL and file names in the batch file, get the correct lat/lon for it and you'll be good to go.

At this time, I'm not going to write a script that puts all 30+ sites that UCAR has into one placefile. It can be done...just not today!

Update from KDOT

2008-10-09T15:57:00.004-05:00

I want to thank Barb from KDOT for the nice email reply I received yesterday. She stated that the camera views from Garden City and Wichita are down because of firewall issues. It is unknown when they will be back online.

She also said that the new cameras (slated for along I-70) should be up in mid-November.

I say that's not a minute too soon! I know at least a couple of times last year when KDOT shut down parts of I-70 because of snow and blizzard conditions. I'm looking forward to the views they will provide for all users and for my camera scripts on GR3.

** UPDATE: SUNDAY 10/12 **

One back...one to go. Wichita returned Friday and has been steady ever since. C'mon GCK!

Update on Upper Air

2008-10-07T11:44:00.006-05:00

I did a little house cleaning this morning with the Upper air data for GR3 (see my earlier post on this). I consolidated the individual raob placefiles into one, thus freeing up a few extra places in the placefile manager. I also added more raob sites. I'm now at 8 raob sites around my area, which just happens to be the limit (you can have up to 8 "Iconfiles" statements).

When I first put this together, I put each raob site into it's own placefile because of overlapping issues when displaying multiple sites. This time around, I simply changed the threshold statement from 250 to 100. As a result, you have to zoom in a ways to get the sites to pop up, far enough so that it ensures that they won't overlap one another.

I'll do the same to the profiler data once it is available again.

I missed the memo!

2008-10-06T21:41:00.006-05:00

I was wondering this past weekend why I couldn't get my profiler scripts to work for GR3. I just figured there was a problem at NCAR/UCAR:

EFFECTIVE OCTOBER 1 2008 ALL NWS WIND PROFILER PRODUCTS WILL BE UNAVAILABLE FOR APPROXIMATELY 3 TO 5 WEEKS.

THE SUSPENSION IN AVAILABILITY OF WIND PROFILER DATA IS
NECESSARY BECAUSE OF RECENTLY INDENTIFIED IT SECURITY
THREATS. THE WIND PROFILER NETWORK CURRENTLY OPERATES ON OBSOLETE EQUIPMENT THAT CAN NOT SUPPORT NECESSARY IT SECURITY METHODS. INTERCONNECTION TO MAJOR NWS SYSTEMS EXTENDS THE VULNERABILITY TO OTHER NWS IT SYSTEMS.

There's no good time for this kind of data loss but I guess better now than the middle of April or May!!

Monday morning updates

2008-10-06T11:21:00.005-05:00

I spent an hour this morning going through the Kansas camera scripts again. I found a couple of errors I overlooked from the previous update (my bad!). I also took out some other cameras that were down and replaced them with cameras that have returned to the fray.

I sent an email to the Kansas Department of Transportation this morning too. They still have 2 cameras down, one in Garden City and in Wichita, with the former down since 9/16. I don't have a timetable for return yet.

A few tweaks

2008-10-03T16:53:00.004-05:00

I spent a few minutes today updating the Kansas camera batch script. The issue was a URL change by KDOT which affected all 8 of their cameras (2 of them remain down though, even after the change). I'll continue to monitor things and won't make changes to any down camera(s) unless it's clear there's a persistent problem. Otherwise, I'll spend too much time switching/editing scripts.

Camera Updates

2008-09-25T11:00:00.004-05:00

If you've come over for the Poor Man's Mesoanalysis, please scroll down a bit! Thanks!

Otherwise, I've updated the kscambat.txt and kscampf.txt files for the WebCam Project. A few of the cameras have had lengthy downtimes. There's also a handful that haven't updated in the last week but I left them in for now in case they return soon. I'll give those cameras another week then we'll go from there.

Poor Man's Mesoanalysis for GRLevel3

2008-09-23T13:32:00.028-05:00

What do you get with you merge SPC's mesoanalysis page with GRLevel3? I call it the "Poor Man's Mesoanalysis."

If you have the URL2File and ImageMagick programs already on your computer through my "Web Cam Project", then you're in business! If not, see my earlier post on this. You'll simply need to run a batch file that will download, convert and cut the graphics. Once that's done and you have the placefiles loaded on GRLevel3, they will show up on your display!

In a perfect world, I'd like to use SPC's "sector graphics" since they have much higher resolution . There's a problem though: the locations are always changing (dang weather anyway!) The National Sector view however doesn't change.

First, I created a folder called (big surprise) SPC in the C:\Program Files\GRLevelX\GRLevel3 directory. I run the following batch file (located in the SPC folder) to get the following 16 products from the National Sector view:

URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/mcon.gif mcon.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/ttd.gif ttd.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/thea.gif thea.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/pchg.gif pchg.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/sbcp.gif sbcp.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/mlcp.gif mlcp.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/laps.gif laps.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/dcape.gif dcape.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/lfch.gif lfch.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/lclh.gif lclh.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/shr6.gif shr6.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/srh1.gif srh1.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/ehi1.gif ehi1.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/ehi3.gif ehi3.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/scp.gif scp.gif
URL2File http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/s4/pwtr.gif pwtr.gif

convert mcon.gif -shave 300x200 -matte mcon.png
convert ttd.gif -shave 300x200 -matte ttd.png
convert thea.gif -shave 300x200 -matte thea.png
convert pchg.gif -shave 300x200 -matte pchg.png
convert sbcp.gif -shave 300x200 -matte sbcp.png
convert mlcp.gif -shave 300x200 -matte mlcp.png
convert laps.gif -shave 300x200 -matte laps.png
convert dcape.gif -shave 300x200 -matte dcape.png
convert lfch.gif -shave 300x200 -matte lfch.png
convert lclh.gif -shave 300x200 -matte lclh.png
convert shr6.gif -shave 300x200 -matte shr6.png
convert srh1.gif -shave 300x200 -matte srh1.png
convert ehi1.gif -shave 300x200 -matte ehi1.png
convert ehi3.gif -shave 300x200 -matte ehi3.png
convert scp.gif -shave 300x200 -matte scp.png
convert pwtr.gif -shave 300x200 -matte pwtr.png

Since GRLevelX placefiles support PNG, JPG and TIF files only, I use ImageMagick to not only change the SPC GIF files to PNG but to also cut out the portion of the map I want:

From there, I load the following placefile into GRLevel3 to display it:

;Moisture convergence from SPC

Refresh: 60
Title: Mstr Cnvg from SPC

Image: c:\Program Files\GRLevelX\GRLevel3\SPC\mcon.png
32.57435, -102.50050, 0, 1
42.80730, -103.78930, 0, 0
42.80355, -89.05626, 1, 0
32.57435, -102.50050, 0, 1
42.80355, -89.05626, 1, 0
32.52673, -90.64704, 1, 1
End:

This is what it looks like on my computer:

Here's the entire list of placefiles you'll need to make this work on your computer. You can give them any name you want.

As you can tell, these placefiles work for Kansas but include some neighboring states too. If you wish to mess with ImageMagick to change the "shave" numbers (which determines what part of the original graphic to cut out) and then mess with the lat/lon in the placefiles, please go for it! I unfortunately don't have the time to make other "sectors" for other areas of the country. My example will serve as a template for others who want to expand on my work. In addition, if you want to add more of SPC's National Sector products to this, simply look up the raw image(s) on their site.

If you're hoping my work can replace your AllisonHouse/F5Data subscription, you will be sorely disappointed! It's not even in the same league of high quality products they make! However, if you have a tight budget and want to give this a try, be my guest!

As always, if you have any comments, concerns or complaints: please let me know!

New Header

2008-07-18T16:38:00.003-05:00

I had an artistic moment this afternoon so I made a new header for the blog. These moments don't come often so I took advantage of it while it was there. Enjoy.

Updates!! (Finally)

2008-07-17T16:52:00.003-05:00

This has been in beta testing for a couple of weeks but I finally had enough time today to get it finished...

For a while now, I've been wanting to clean up the camera files. So, I have taken the previously named "ks1", "ks2" and "ks3" files and converted them to just one placefile and one bat file. While this does make each respective file longer, it also allows the user to have just one placefile loaded for the Kansas cameras instead of 3. I don't know about you but my placefile manager is almost full!!

I also have changed the "gr3cambat.txt" file too.

Any questions, comments or concerns...please let me know!

Rodney

Sorry for Lack of updates lately

2008-06-18T11:07:00.002-05:00

Needless to say with the severe weather season ongoing, I've had no time for side projects, including updates for the web cameras and such. Hopefully the death ridge will build in soon and things will calm down and dry out. Once that happens, I can resume some other projects.

Crude Profiler and Upper air data displayed on GRLevel3

2008-03-27T06:41:00.019-05:00

A few days ago I was thinking, "I'd like to see profiler data on GRLevel3". I've been working on this little project since then and I finally have it the way I like.

It works very similar to the web camera scripts that I've maintained for the last year and a half. The scripts run locally on your computer using the programs URL2File and ImageMagick. (If you are new to the web cameras, see my initial "how-to" post.)

Using URL2File, I downloaded profiler data (.gif files) available on the NCAR/RAP Real-Time Weather Data page. After I saved an initial picture, I used the ImageMagick scripting to resize it and combined it with a transparent triangle (pointer.png). I then wrote a placefile script for each profiler site, so the operator could toggle it on/off. There's just too much overlap/screen blockage if you try to display them all in one placefile (trust me, I tried it already!) The final result looks like this:

It's by no means perfect but if you want a quick and dirty method to display the data, then you're in luck.

Here's how I set everything up:

On my computer, I have the following directory set up:

C:\Program Files\GRLevelX\GRLevel3\pictures\profiler

The "pictures" folder is where all of the webcam pics go. To organize things, I created a "profiler" folder. This is where I put the "profilerUCAR.bat", "pointer.png" and "sitedown.jpg", the latter of which is used by the scripts in case the site is down (to keep the .bat file from freezing up). Remember: before you can operate the script, you must change the name from "profilerUCARbat.txt" to "profilerUCAR.bat" (without the quotation marks of course).

Here's how the first block of the script looks:

URL2File http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/upper/lmn_wp.gif lmn.jpg ||convert sitedown.png lmn.jpg
convert lmn.jpg -resize 400x400! lmntemp.png
convert pointer.png lmntemp.png +append lmn.png

The rest of the script can be found on the "Profiler/Upper Air Project" on the right part of my blog. The placefile for the Lamont, OK site looks like this:

; Crude Profiler data for GRLevel3
; by Rodney Price 3/26/08

Refresh: 10

Title: Lamont, OK Wind Profiler
Threshold: 250
IconFile: 1, 1000, 400, 500, 200,"C:\Program Files\GRLevelX\GRLevel3\pictures\profiler\lmn.png"
Font: 1, 11, 1, "Arial"

Icon: 36.68, -97.47, 0,1,1, "Lamont, OK Wind Profiler\nHourly data"

Right now, I have worked on just 6 sites for my local area but it will serve as a template so that you can easily add sites for your area if you wish.

In addition, I changed up the code a bit to also display the UCAR upper air data. It operates pretty much the same as the profiler scripts. I created another folder in the "pictures" directory for "upperair" (to keep it separate from the profiler stuff). Put the file "raobsbat.txt" in that folder (and change the name to "raobs.bat"). In addition, a copy of the "pointer.png" and "sitedown.png" file each must be in this folder too so the .bat file will work properly.

The TOP and DDC sites can also serve as a template if you wish to add more sites.

I hope all of this made sense. Please let me know if you have any questions or problems!

Rodney

Whoops...it's been while

2008-02-23T21:10:00.003-06:00

Good evening!

I've been a little busy with projects for the upcoming Spring severe weather season so sorry for the shortage of updates here. I'll try to get a few more updates next week. I've found a few more cameras to add to the mix.

More Updates

2008-01-22T16:21:00.000-06:00

Today I added 3 "new cameras" to the ks3 scripts. These cameras have actually been used before but had been unavailable for quite some time. I finally found a round about link for the Wamego camera which I hadn't been able to use in over a year I think.

Project completed!

2008-01-09T21:45:00.000-06:00

I hope 2008 is treating you well thus far!

I've made a slight change in all of the camera batch files. When you can't connect to a camera, it will give you a "Camera Down" image instead. I've tested this over the last week and it works fine and is stable. Here's an example of the slight code change in the batch files:

URL2File http://www.bburg.com/cam/cam1.jpg springf.jpg ||convert camdown.png springf.jpg

This last part:

||convert camdown.png springf.jpg

is what has been recently added to this line. The new segment only runs if you can't connect to the camera URL. It basically takes the default camdown.png image and puts it in the place of the image (in this case, "springf.jpg"). In the past, if say camera 10 was down, you would see camera 11 in it's place and so on and so forth. The script will have the camdown image in place of the camera's normal image and the rest of the sequence won't be messed up. (I hope that makes sense!)

You'll want to download the camdown.png file and place it in the GRLevel3\pictures folder.

While this does fix the problem if the URL is down, it does NOT resolve the problem of having an OLD image on the site. The scripts cannot differentiate between an image that's 2 minutes old or 2 days old.

Speaking of really OLD images, all of the web camera images from KCTV are down. I'm not sure what the issue is but this affects the "ks2" and "mo1" scripts. Here's a prime example of where this new code cannot help in cases like this.

I've also found more new cameras here in Kansas, so I've added the "ks3cambat.txt" and "ks3cams.txt" files to the list.

If you have any problems, please let me know!

Rodney

Happy Holidays and upcoming projects

2007-12-24T09:41:00.000-06:00

Things have slowed considerably now that Christmas is almost here. I plan some upgrades on the camera scripts in early 2008 if I can get the code to work right. I'm trying to figure out a way to put a "Camera Down" image in place of any camera that isn't working. My initial attempt last week didn't work so I have more debugging to do with the DOS-scripts.

Happy Holidays!

Cameras down

2007-12-11T15:55:00.000-06:00

A number of web cams in the scripts are down because of the ice storm that has hit much of the Plains. Obviously, the scripts will not be running correctly for an unspecified amount of time. I've seen a number of cameras down in the OKC metro area (no surprise) and some here in Kansas, just to name a few.

Wichita has managed to stay around 32-33 degrees overnight and have been around 33-34 all day. Locations to the north and west of the city have not been as fortunate and have gotten hammered by this ice storm with ice accumulation of 1" or more.

New updates

2007-12-03T16:15:00.000-06:00

I've added a couple of new cameras to the Nebraska list, so the appropriate "NE" files have been updated.

I'm in the process of figuring out if I can get the images from the NDOR webpage into my NE list. So far, no good. Each time you access the newest image, it's given a file name with the current date and time within it. It's not your typical static image name. I'll plug away on this a little more over the next couple of days but right now it doesn't look promising.

The towercam in Lawrence is experiencing some kind of server issue so it is down right now. I'll continue to monitor it.

Side Project Part 2

2007-11-15T22:10:00.001-06:00

I've done a little tinkering with the coordinates from the last post. Try these instead for each of the satellite placefiles:

31.12412, -104.28775, 0, 1
43.23659, -105.62842, 0, 0
43.33702, -89.02990, 1, 0
31.12412, -104.28775, 0, 1
43.33702, -89.02990, 1, 0
31.24986, -89.92841, 1, 1

This improved the overlay quite a bit...they match up with the basemap a lot better now. It's still a 2x2 vertex.

Another Side Project

2007-11-12T16:53:00.000-06:00

I recently created these 2 crude placefiles to display a visible and IR satellite image on GR3. You can call it my "poor man's" version of satellite images for the program.

-------------
;Satellite placefile from Adds

Refresh: 15
Title: IR Sat: ICT

Image: http://adds.aviationweather.gov/data/satellite/latest_ICT_ir.jpg
31.16612, -104.28775, 0, 1
43.19659, -105.62842, 0, 0
43.39702, -89.02990, 1, 0
31.16612, -104.28775, 0, 1
43.39702, -89.02990, 1, 0
31.12986, -89.92841, 1, 1
End:
-------------
;Satellite placefile from Adds

Refresh: 15
Title: Visible Sat: ICT

Image: http://adds.aviationweather.gov/data/satellite/latest_ICT_vis.jpg
31.16612, -104.28775, 0, 1
43.19659, -105.62842, 0, 0
43.39702, -89.02990, 1, 0
31.16612, -104.28775, 0, 1
43.39702, -89.02990, 1, 0
31.12986, -89.92841, 1, 1
End:
-------------

They aren't the greatest and really look the best when the KICT radar is selected. But overall, they do what I need them to do!

Pre-Halloween stuff

2007-10-30T08:53:00.000-05:00

I uploaded new versions of the following files:

ks1cams.txt
ks1cambat.txt
ne1cams.txt
ne1cambat.txt

I found a new camera near Topeka to add and an old one in Madison (south of Emporia). The latter had gone down several months ago and is now back up.

The McCook, NE camera is still down after a couple of weeks. I took it out of the script and added two new ones.

More camera updates

2007-10-23T08:28:00.001-05:00

It looks like whatever problems cotrip.org was having Sunday morning are over. I couldn't get any images at all from the web cameras link. It kind of sucked at the time, with the thundersnow going on in west Denver!

I did find some other cameras though and the snow was really coming down! You gotta love technology!

I'll be rather busy the next couple of days so I doubt if I get any updates done. I did run the main "gr3cam.bat" script this morning and it appears every link worked with the exception of the camera in McCook, NE. I also had an incomplete image from one of the cameras from OKC.

Thank you!

2007-10-12T21:13:00.001-05:00

Well, my new post on the GRLevelX forum has had about 70 views since Wednesday. That's not bad considering I hadn't done major work on the web cam project since April. Thank you for taking a look at the updates and the new page. I hope you've enjoyed the visit.

Camera updates

2007-10-10T13:09:00.000-05:00

I noticed this morning as I was updating things that a few cameras are down. Most of the issues concern the Cotrip.org cameras and a few from KJRH and KCTV.

I'm not sure what's up (server issues?) but I will leave the scripts unchanged for now. I'd hate to change a bunch of things and then have to change them back just for a temporary hiccup.

New look to my GRLevel3 Page!

2007-10-10T11:26:00.001-05:00

I decided recently to give my GRLevel3 web page a facelift! I moved all of my GRLevel3 related work from my "cox.net" based page to what you see now here on Blogger. The good news is that I can now post new work much faster and it's a much cleaner look! I hope you like it!

That said, I am still using part of the old cox.net based page for storing the placefiles and batch files for the GRLevel3 Live Webcam Project. If needed, I can store important pictures there too or use it for other future needs.

I'm happy to report that I have updated all of the placefiles and batch files in the last week. I had found some links that were outdated and some cameras that just did not work anymore. In addition, I have added some cameras from Colorado and Missouri. Please look on the right side of your screen under "The Live GRLevel3 Webcam Project Links" to find these links.

Any questions or comments, please let me know!!

Rodney

Background to the "GRLevel3 Live Webcam Project"

2007-10-10T10:58:00.000-05:00

I started the GRLevel3 Live Web Project (GR3LWCP) in late summer 2006. Ever since Placefiles were introduced to GRLevel3, I wanted to figure out some way to add web cam pictures on the radar screen, much like what is done on the web page "WeatherBonk". Once I felt I had a decent understanding of placefiles, I went to work.

Here is a list of the programs you'll need:

GRLevel3 (goes without saying)
URL2File
ImageMagick
Google Earth

URL2File is a free 32bit Windows console-mode application able to retrieve and save the content of a given World Wide Web or FTP URL to a local file. (quoted right from their web page). In other words, using a DOS window, you can type in some simple commands to grab the file you want and save it directly to your computer. This program is a very small file, less than 500K.

ImageMagick is a software suite to create, edit, and compose images. The functionality of ImageMagick is typically utilized from the command line or you can use the features from programs written in your favorite programming language. (quoted from their web page). This is a much larger download, about 15Mb.

Google Earth was used to find the lat/lon of the cameras' location.

Getting started!

The first thing I had to do was download URL2File and ImageMagick. I saved URL2File to my computer: C:\Program Files\GRLevelX\GRLevel3.

Next, I installed ImageMagick onto my computer (e.g. C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-6.2.9-Q16). (editor's note: this was the current version when I first started this project. It has since been updated!)

Next, I had to find the raw images to import. My search started here in Kansas, looking for web cams at TV stations, schools, etc. However, I didn't want to save the web page, just the raw image from the web cam (whatever format is used.) For example, there is a camera in Lawrence that I found at this site:

http://www.lawrence.com/downloads/webcams

In doing a little sniffing around, I found the raw image:

http://etc.lawrence.com/webcam/tower.cgi

This search went on and on until I found a decent amount of web cams.

Creating Files:

First we'll need a .bat file that will not only download/save the images, but also process them using ImageMagick into a format that GRLevel3 can use. I wrote webcam.bat and placed it a new folder where GRLevel3 is located. It is:

C:\Program Files\GRLevelX\GRLevel3\pictures

For instructional purposes, the original webcam.bat file looked something like this:

del *.jpg
del *.png

URL2File http://media.mgbg.com/kwch/images2/towercam/kwchtower.jpg kwch.jpg
URL2File http://media.49abcnews.com/img/webcam/axis0.jpg ktka.jpg
URL2File http://etc.lawrence.com/webcam/tower.cgi klwc.jpg

convert kwch.jpg -resize 120x90! kwch.png
convert ktka.jpg -resize 120x90! ktka.png
convert klwc.jpg -resize 120x90! klwc.png

convert kwch.png ktka.png klwc.png +append -matte webcam1.png

You'll notice that in this DOS-based script, I first delete all of the old images (jpg/png) in this folder, then start the download.

URL2File http://etc.lawrence.com/webcam/tower.cgi klwc.jpg

In this line for example, URL2File goes to the lawrence.com web site and downloads the picture, saving it as "klwc.jpg". After it downloads all of the new images, it then converts them using ImageMagick. For example:

convert klwc.jpg -resize 120x90! klwc.png

This line tells ImageMagick to convert klwc.jpg to a 120x90 .png file titled klwc.png.

The final line:

convert kwch.png ktka.png klwc.png +append -matte webcam1.png

...takes all of the new, resized .png files and in the order I programmed, arranges them from left to right, adds an alpha channel and saves it as webcam1.png. I don't want to bore you with a complete tutorial of ImageMagick. Heck, there's much more **I** need to learn. For more, please visit their web page.

Next, we'll need a placefile to display these web images. I created yet another folder (C:\Program Files\GRLevelX\GRLevel3\places) to put all of my custom placefiles in.

Here's what the very first web cam placefile looked like:

;gr3webcam.txt Verison 0.1
;Placefile for GRLevel3 by Rodney Price, 09/06/06
;updated 9/12/06
Refresh: 2
Title: KS/MO/OK Web cams
Threshold: 500

Color: 200 200 255

IconFile: 1, 120, 90, 60, 45,"C:\Program Files\GRLevelX\GRLevel3\pictures\webcam1.png"
Font: 1, 11, 1, "Arial"

Icon: 37.75093, -97.303882, 0,1,1, "KWCH Web Cam"
Icon: 39.027859, -95.748661, 0,1,2, "KTKA Web Cam"
Icon: 38.973357, -95.235810, 0,1,3, "Lawrence Web Cam"
End:

I created a shortcut on my desktop for webcam.bat. It's not an automatic script. I just run it periodically when I want to as GRLevel3 is up and running.

When everything is up and running, the picture at the top of the post is what it will look similar to.

I'm sure more advanced users could whip up something along the same lines using PHP for example. I just wanted to develop something simple that I could use without learning a new programming language! It's not the most extravagant placefile but maybe it can be of use to some folks.

One drawback to this approach: if one of the web cameras in the script is down, then all of the cameras immediately following it will be plotted in the wrong location. For example, if camera 2 is down, when the image from camera 3 loads, it will be plotted in the camera 2 location (and so on and so forth.)

IMPORTANT EDITOR'S NOTE: On any of the batch files ending with "bat.txt", be sure to change the name so that the extension is ".bat" instead. For example, ks1cambat.txt should be changed to ks1cam.bat. That way your computer knows it's a batch file and will run the program correctly.

ALSO! If you are running the scripts separately (instead of using "gr3cam.bat"), be sure to run ks1cam.bat first as it has the "del *.jpg" and "del *.png" commands at the top of the script. Or, simply delete those 2 lines of code out of the script. Your call.