I care




Op Tue, 14 Oct 2003 16:08:03 -0400 schreef "Rick"
:

Who cares if it works inside or outside the USA? Does it work for me and
the answer is yes, NEXRAD works and better. There are some nice features
like miles from location but both Stormlabs and Stormpredator don't offer
zoomed in street level radar. NEXRAD does. Using Stormlabs and
Stormpredator I can't really tell how close a storm is to the location I
want. With NEXRAD I get an accurate "exact" location of the storm.



"rikkie" wrote in message
.. .
Don't forget to mention that both NEXRAD and Stormlab work outside the
USA , whereas Stormpredator doesn't Now I'm hearing you ask : "why
would someone outsie the USA be interested in US radar -data ? " .
Simple reason : weather-enthusiasts all over the world are interested
in Weather all over the world ( hurricanes don't hit Europe , but
still you'll see extensive coverage of the hurricane season on
european websites , same applies to tornadoes and other extreme
weather : here's already two reasons to be interested in US-Radar ) .

Rik Wessels
Head moderator : www.pro-weather.com



Op 14 Oct 2003 10:00:44 -0700 schreef
(Anthony - IntelliWeather):

Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message
. com...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

A reply to Mr. Wessels, who wants a Dutch Version of StormPredator

One thing StormLab/NEXRAD does not do is support Macintosh, we do. We
feel supporting Macintosh users is far more important at this stage.

But, having StormPredator purposely not install on systems that are
not English versions of Windows was a conscious software protection
choice on our part...since weather is also of significant strategic
value, we don't want our program possibly being used outside of the
USA for things it wasn't intended for....such as possible terrorist
pursuits, or ending up in CD ROMs mass distributed in China and Japan
via piracy.

A brother of my business partner brought back a CD set last year from
Tokyo purchased on the street for $15 that had just about every piece
of Adobe Software for Mac and PC on it, fully cracked and ready to
install. Over $10K worth! So right there is a compelling reason NOT to
offer multilingual versions of my program that will install on non
english Windows PC's. I'm quite content to limit the program for use
in its designed and intended marketplace, the USA, and the NWS NEXRAD
data set.

Plus, the tiny fraction of weather enthusiasts outside of the USA that
may actually buy our program to monitor USA weather is estimated at
less than 1/10th of 1%...so we don't pursue it for the same reason we
don't make an SCO Unix version of the program...supporting it is not
cost effective.

Mr Wessels, since you seem to follow me to every forum I make a post
on, it would seem your interest is rather self centered on your
personal issue with not having a Dutch version for yourself rather
than your concern for weather enthusiasts worldwide.


Best regards,
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather.com
StormPredator.com



rikkie wrote in message . ..
Don't forget to mention that both NEXRAD and Stormlab work outside the
USA , whereas Stormpredator doesn't Now I'm hearing you ask : "why
would someone outsie the USA be interested in US radar -data ? " .
Simple reason : weather-enthusiasts all over the world are interested
in Weather all over the world ( hurricanes don't hit Europe , but
still you'll see extensive coverage of the hurricane season on
european websites , same applies to tornadoes and other extreme
weather : here's already two reasons to be interested in US-Radar ) .

Rik Wessels
Head moderator : www.pro-weather.com



Op 14 Oct 2003 10:00:44 -0700 schreef
(Anthony - IntelliWeather):

Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message om...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

Oh, now you're accusing me of being a terrorist ?? that's a good one.
For your information : I'm perfectly willing to BUY any
weather-software I'm interested in ( in fact I do it all the time ) so
the priracy - argument is lost on me also. I was pointing out other
radar-software works outside the U.S.A. and YOU attack me for it ??
You seem to imply lots of things about me ( you don't even know me ,
so where is that coming from ?? ). It is you who are posting on all
known groups and weather-fora advertising your piece of sofyware : I'm
only pointing out to anyone who happens to live outside the U.S.A.
that they can't use it , since you do not state this on your website ,
and needn't bother to download it. If someone from outside the USA
wants to have access to ( perfectly public ) radar-data they will have
to use other software . That's a valid argument I'm making even if you
don't seem to think so . Nexrad or Stormlab don't seem to care how big
the marketshare is , it's obvious it's your guiding principle of doing
business . Accusing me of all kinds of things ( terrorism, Piracy etc.
) isn't going to change that fact. " Weather a signifant strategic
value " ...c'mon how gullible do you think readers of this group are
?? Your end - point is true , I do follow up on your posts , simply
because I'm just as much a member of the groups you're advertising on
as you are and am therefore entitled to voice my opinion. If you can't
stand the heat , stay out of the kitchen




Op 14 Oct 2003 16:06:00 -0700 schreef
(Anthony - IntelliWeather):

A reply to Mr. Wessels, who wants a Dutch Version of StormPredator

One thing StormLab/NEXRAD does not do is support Macintosh, we do. We
feel supporting Macintosh users is far more important at this stage.

But, having StormPredator purposely not install on systems that are
not English versions of Windows was a conscious software protection
choice on our part...since weather is also of significant strategic
value, we don't want our program possibly being used outside of the
USA for things it wasn't intended for....such as possible terrorist
pursuits, or ending up in CD ROMs mass distributed in China and Japan
via piracy.

A brother of my business partner brought back a CD set last year from
Tokyo purchased on the street for $15 that had just about every piece
of Adobe Software for Mac and PC on it, fully cracked and ready to
install. Over $10K worth! So right there is a compelling reason NOT to
offer multilingual versions of my program that will install on non
english Windows PC's. I'm quite content to limit the program for use
in its designed and intended marketplace, the USA, and the NWS NEXRAD
data set.

Plus, the tiny fraction of weather enthusiasts outside of the USA that
may actually buy our program to monitor USA weather is estimated at
less than 1/10th of 1%...so we don't pursue it for the same reason we
don't make an SCO Unix version of the program...supporting it is not
cost effective.

Mr Wessels, since you seem to follow me to every forum I make a post
on, it would seem your interest is rather self centered on your
personal issue with not having a Dutch version for yourself rather
than your concern for weather enthusiasts worldwide.


Best regards,
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather.com
StormPredator.com



rikkie wrote in message . ..
Don't forget to mention that both NEXRAD and Stormlab work outside the
USA , whereas Stormpredator doesn't Now I'm hearing you ask : "why
would someone outsie the USA be interested in US radar -data ? " .
Simple reason : weather-enthusiasts all over the world are interested
in Weather all over the world ( hurricanes don't hit Europe , but
still you'll see extensive coverage of the hurricane season on
european websites , same applies to tornadoes and other extreme
weather : here's already two reasons to be interested in US-Radar ) .

Rik Wessels
Head moderator : www.pro-weather.com



Op 14 Oct 2003 10:00:44 -0700 schreef
(Anthony - IntelliWeather):

Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message om...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

Anthony,

Good to hear that there will be a new release to StormPredator with "full
screen rectangular mode". My 14 day trial ends tomorrow, will I be able to
re-eval the new release?

Thanks and excited to see the latest from you.


"Anthony - IntelliWeather" wrote in message
om...
Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message
om...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

Anothony,

Wow, I'm glad you posted your defense of Storm Predator, the details
of which I find quite interesting. I must confess that when I
downloaded your product, I never REALLY got a chance to get to know it
very well. You see, I live in California and the storms just haven't
come yet... and looking at storms I'm not about to be hit by doesn't
really interest me. Anyways, those comments I made are definitely
just a first impression and I'm glad to hear what you have to say
about the details... ESPECIALLY the faster download times. When the
rains come, I'll give your program a good shot... as well as the
others.

The logic to your circular radar is compelling, but I also like to see
the entire square map that I'm used to seeing on the nexrad websites.
I guess its just a matter of preference though, because its true, some
people might not understand that the radars have a circular dropoff.
For me, in an ideal world, you'd have a circular ring on a square map.
I guess it might be a good thing to add to the preferences at any
rate. Your display sure is flashy, though and I can understand how it
would appeal to a broader audience. Especially if those people are
looking at the "View a Screenshot" button on downloads.com. Come to
think of it, I did that exact thing and thought it looked cool.

Anyways, thanks for the response.

Dub


(Anthony - IntelliWeather) wrote in message
. com...
Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message om...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

Sorry... where can you get "Zoomed in Street Level radar"? Exactly
what do you mean by this? What website? Are you saying it has a
street map? Huh?

Dub


"Rick" wrote in message . ..
Who cares if it works inside or outside the USA? Does it work for me and
the answer is yes, NEXRAD works and better. There are some nice features
like miles from location but both Stormlabs and Stormpredator don't offer
zoomed in street level radar. NEXRAD does. Using Stormlabs and
Stormpredator I can't really tell how close a storm is to the location I
want. With NEXRAD I get an accurate "exact" location of the storm.



"rikkie" wrote in message
...
Don't forget to mention that both NEXRAD and Stormlab work outside the
USA , whereas Stormpredator doesn't Now I'm hearing you ask : "why
would someone outsie the USA be interested in US radar -data ? " .
Simple reason : weather-enthusiasts all over the world are interested
in Weather all over the world ( hurricanes don't hit Europe , but
still you'll see extensive coverage of the hurricane season on
european websites , same applies to tornadoes and other extreme
weather : here's already two reasons to be interested in US-Radar ) .

Rik Wessels
Head moderator : www.pro-weather.com



Op 14 Oct 2003 10:00:44 -0700 schreef
(Anthony - IntelliWeather):

Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message
om...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

Uh ok... that conversation just took a turn for the wierd. Dum dee dum.

Dub


"nexrad" wrote in message ...
Anthony,

Good to hear that there will be a new release to StormPredator with "full
screen rectangular mode". My 14 day trial ends tomorrow, will I be able to
re-eval the new release?

Thanks and excited to see the latest from you.


"Anthony - IntelliWeather" wrote in message
om...
Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message
om...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

Zoomed in street level is where you can pinpoint either your home, work or
other area of interest. You can see most of the major and secondary roads
of the radar you are viewing. Some of the maps even show the local
streets.

Storm Predator and Storm Labs DO NOT allow you to zoom in and properly
identify your location. Zooming in you can do but can't pinpoint any
"specific" locations. With Nexrad you can. Using Nexrad I have on a site I
have the exact location of where I live, office and the park I play softball
at.

You can get Nexrad at http://www.hurricanealley.net/nexrad.html. Once
installed go to helpopertations notes and follow what is written. Take
special note of DCW and Tiger maps. That's where you get the local streets.

Hope this helps.



"Dubs" wrote in message
om...
Sorry... where can you get "Zoomed in Street Level radar"? Exactly
what do you mean by this? What website? Are you saying it has a
street map? Huh?