chilplot

This program produces quicklooks from Chilbolton-format radar data. The processing options are shared with chil2a, chil2nc and loadchil. Additional options are given below. You may find it more convenient to convert the data to netCDF and then plot it using chilncplot.

General plotting options

-png
Produce PNG images. This is the default.
-eps, -ps
Produce encapsulated postscript images. These files can be incorporated into documents or sent directly to a postscript printer.
-oneplot
Produce only one plot and send it to standard output rather than a file.
-prefix s
Put the images in the directory s.
-xfs s
Contact the X font server s. By default the program tries to contact unix/:-1, but this is not always the appropriate port to use; on some systems you should use `-xfs unix/:7100'. If X is running then you can find the address of the font server by running `xset -q'. In XFree86 version 4.0 the font server has been incorporated with the X server, so an X font server may need to be run independently: as root run `xfs -port 7100'. Note that you can decide the default font server to contact at compile time - just edit the top level Makefile. Unfortunately at present there are no fall-back fonts built into the program.
-heightrange f1 f2
Set the height range (y-axis of cloud plots, RHIs and FIXEDs) to be from f1 km to f2 km.
-Zrange f1 f2
Set the range of the radar reflectivity colour scale to be from f1 dBZ to f2 dBZ.
-LDRrange f1 f2
Set the range of the linear depolarisation ratio to be from f1 dB to f2 dB.
-PHIDPrange f1 f2
Set the range of the differential phase shift colour scale to be from f1 degrees to f2 degrees.
-fontsize n
Set the size of the font (default 12).
-mag f
Set the magnification factor (default 1, max 10, min 0.01).
-maxsize d
If the pseudo-colour image is larger than d pixels in either direction then scale it down accordingly. This is useful if you don't like those 360 degree PPIs very much.

Plotting options specific to scanning data

-locations s
Read the locations of cities/landmarks from the ascii file s and plot them on PPIs. The format is simple - the first line of the file contains the number of locations in the file, which are specified as the name of the place followed by its distance east and distance north (in km) from the radar. A sample file for towns in the vicinity of Chilbolton could be:
11
Chilbolton 0 0
Southampton 2 -27
Reading 34 32 
Chilton 9 46 
Bristol -80 32 
London 90 40 
Bournemouth -32 -49
Guildford 60 10
Oxford 13 65
Salisbury -35 -10
Portsmouth 25 -40
This file can also be found at PREFIX/share/chilplot/locations.dat (where PREFIX is usually /usr/local). The first line is the number of locations in the file.
-coastline s
Read coastline data from the ascii file s and plot it on PPIs. The file format is simple: the first line is the number of coast points, and the rest of the file consists of longitude and latitude values. The -999 -999 pair indicates a break in the line. A file containing the UK coastline can be found at PREFIX/share/chilplot/coast.dat. Please note that this feature is very experimental at the moment - coast-lines drawn on postscript images don't clip to the axis, and breaks in the coastline don't work properly.
-rrange f1 f2
Set the horizontal axis range for RHIs to be from f1 km to f2 km.
-fixduration f
Set the duration of FIX plots to f minutes.

Plotting options specific to cloud data

-hourrange f1 f2
Plot data from f1 UTC to f2 UTC. If the -all or -data options (described here) are used then, by default, a whole day will be plotted. Otherwise the default is to plot 6 hours of data starting at the time of the first ray. See also the -duration option.
-duration f
If the -hourrange, -all and -date options are not specified, then the plots will start at the time of the first ray and proceed for f hours.