HAMweather QPFDay 2.0 (Nov 13, 2005)

Contents:

OVERVIEW:

QPF stands for the Quantitive Precipitation Forecast. This forecast report details the amount of liquid precipitation that will be recieved in 24 increments. The report will contain the forecast data for 24 to 72 hours (1-3 days) from the time of the report..

The HW3QPF plugin allows HAMweather to display the textual QPF report, and if you have HWimage installed, the plugin can generate contour maps based on the QPF forecast for the next 2 to 3 days. The QPFmaps created will look similiar too:

License:

The HW3QPF plug-in falls under the HAMweather 3 Software suite license. You can find the latest version at:
http://www.hamweather.net/hw3/license.shtml

As part of the HAMweather 3 license, you must keep the credit phrase "HAMweather.com" on all QPF contour maps unless HAMweather 3 has been properly registered.

Requirements:

The HW3 QPF plugin requires the following HAMweather products be installed and working correctly:

Downloading:

The HW3QPF can be downloaded from the HAMweather Plug-in area.

Installation:

Installation of the HW3 QPF is fairly simple, using the steps below:

  1. Make sure you have met the requirements stated above.
  2. Unzip the HW3QPF distribution with an unzipping utility, such as winzip, or the built in zip capabilities of Window XP.
  3. Upload the various files to your HAMweather 3 installation:
    1. Upload the "QPFDAY.pm" ("QPFDAY.php" for HW3php) and the MakeQPFMap.pm ("MakeQPFMap.php for HW3php) to the hamlib/HW3Plugins directory

      NOTE: Your FTP program may not auto recognize ".pm" files as text files and may try to upload in binary mode. You should force your FTP program to upload these files in ASCII mode as uploading in binary mode will cause errors on UNIX/LINUX servers.

      The following should be installed in the paths indicated after you upload the file (Note: Unix servers are case sensitive):

           HW3perl (or HW3asp):
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/QPFDAY.pm
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/MakeQPFMap.pm

           HW3php:
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/QPFDAY.php
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/MakeQPFMap.php
    2. Upload the files with-in the distribution's "configs" directory to the "configs" directory of the HAMweather 3 installation. NOTE: You are not replacing your current "configs" directory but simply uploading the ini files to the "ini" directory on the server.

      NOTE: Your FTP program may not auto recognize ".ini" files as text files and may try to upload in binary mode. You should force your FTP program to upload these files in ASCII mode as uploading in binary mode will cause errors on UNIX/LINUX servers.

      The following should be installed in the paths indicated after you upload the in the distributions "templates" directory:

           HW3Perl (or HW3asp):
           configs/fc_qpfday.ini
           configs/fc_qpfdaymap.ini

           HW3php:
           configs/fc_qpfday.ini      .php
           configs/fc_qpfdaymap.ini.php
    3. Upload the files with-in the distribution's "templates" directory to the "templates" directory of the HAMweather 3 installation. NOTE: You are not replacing your current "templates" directory but simply uploading the template files to the "templates" directory on the server.

      The following should be installed in the paths indicated after you upload the in the distributions "templates" directory:

           templates/qpfday.html
           templates/qpfdaytext.html
    4. Upload the blankmap files with-in the distributions "images/blankmaps" directory to the "images/blankmaps" directory of your HW3 installation.

  4. If your HW3 installation does not yet have the HW3 Plugin API installed, a zipped copy has been included to help with your ease with installation. To install the HW3 Plugin API:
    1. Unzip the hw3pluginapi.zip thats included in the distribution.
    2. Upload the "HW3PluginAPI.pm" ("HW3PluginAPI.php" for HW3php) and the ImagePluginAPI.pm ("ImagePluginAPI.php for HW3php) to the hamlib/HW3Plugins directory

      NOTE: Your FTP program may not auto recognize ".pm" files as text files and may try to upload in binary mode. You should force your FTP program to upload these files in ASCII mode as uploading in binary mode will cause errors on UNIX/LINUX servers.

      The following should be installed in the paths indicated after you upload the file (Note: Unix servers are case sensitive):

           HW3perl (or HW3asp):
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/HW3PluginAPI.pm
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/ImagePluginAPI.pm

           HW3php:
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/HW3PluginAPI.php
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/ImagePluginAPI.php
    3. Upload the "AddTitle.pm" ("AddTitle.php" for HW3php) and the Legend.pm ("Legend.php for HW3php) to the hamlib/HW/HWimage/Tools directory

      NOTE: Your FTP program may not auto recognize ".pm" files as text files and may try to upload in binary mode. You should force your FTP program to upload these files in ASCII mode as uploading in binary mode will cause errors on UNIX/LINUX servers.

      The following should be installed in the paths indicated after you upload the file (Note: Unix servers are case sensitive):

           HW3perl (or HW3asp):
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/AddTitle.pm
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/Legend.pm

           HW3php:
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/AddTitle.php
           hamlib/HW3Plugins/Legend.php
    4. Edit the configs/imagepluginapi.ini (imagepluginapi.ini.php for HW3php). In the [Paths] Section, find the setting for "TTF_path". Set this to the complet file path to the True Type fonts directory on your server. Windows users can often use c:\windows\fonts or c:\winnt\fonts. Unix/Linux users will normally upload TTF fonts to a directory and then set this setting to the file path of that directory.
    5. Upload the files with-in the distribution's "configs" directory to the "configs" directory of the HAMweather 3 installation. NOTE: You are not replacing your current "configs" directory but simply uploading the ini files to the "ini" directory on the server.

      NOTE: Your FTP program may not auto recognize ".ini" files as text files and may try to upload in binary mode. You should force your FTP program to upload these files in ASCII mode as uploading in binary mode will cause errors on UNIX/LINUX servers.

      The following should be installed in the paths indicated after you upload the in the distributions "templates" directory:

           HW3Perl (or HW3asp):
           configs/imagepluginapi.ini
         
           HW3php:
           configs/imagepluginapi.ini      .php
         
    6. Create the images/watermarks directory if this does not exists and copy the "hw.png" and "hwsmall.png" to this directory.

    7. Edit the configs/imagepluginapi.ini (configs/imagepluginapi.ini.php for HW3php). Find the [Title Settings] Section. Adjust the credit text to match your site. Then upload the file to the HW3 configs directory.

  5. The components required to use the HW3 QPF Plugin are installed.

Accessing:

To access the HW3 QPF plug-in with in HAMweather and have it generate the 3 QPF maps use a URL similiar too: :

    HW3Perl (or HW3asp):
    hw3.cgi?forecast=qpfdaymap&dpp=0

    HW3php:
    hw3.php?forecast=qpfdaymap&dpp=0

Note: When using the above method, you may also pass the overlay, plotcities and usemap parameters to the pass template, which will pass them to the image src attribute. All other Parameters must be specifically added to the img src attribute that is creating the image.

To access HW3 and have it display the Textual QPF information use the following URL:

    HW3Perl (or HW3asp):
    hw3.cgi?forecast=qpfday&dpp=0

    HW3php:
    hw3.php?forecast=qpfday&dpp=0

To access HW3 and have it generate and output a specific QPF contour map you can use a url similar to the following:

    HW3Perl (or HW3asp):
    hw3.cgi?forecast=qpfdaymap&dpp=0&qpfday=1

    HW3php:
    hw3.cgi?forecast=qpfdaymap&dpp=0&qpfday=1

    You can adjust the qpfday=1 to qpfday=2 or qpfday=3 for the Day 2 & day 3 maps.

There are several options that you can adjust via the query string, the qpfdaymap.ini file (qpfdaymap.ini for php) or a combination of both.

Parameters:

Here is a complete list of all the parameters that can be passed to the QPFDay plugin via the query string, form post or an INI file:

Parameter
Query String or INI?
Description
Primary Query Settings
nocache
query
 Controls if image is cached or forced to be recreated. nocache=1 will force HW3 to recreate the image. Useful during testing, but should not be set or set to zero during production
qpfday
query
 Defines which day QPF map should be generated for. Default is "1"
usemap
query
 Can supply the name of the map (minus extension) to plot the contours on. If not set will default to qpf_usa which will plot ont he included qpf_usa.png map.


Template Variables:

Under normal use, there is no need to reveiw the template variables. But if you would like to create/modify your own template for use with the QPF data, the QPF plugin offers the following template variables:

Template
Variable		 Description
%%qpf_issuetime%% The issue time from the QPF issue date
%%qpf_month%% The date portion of the QPF issue date
%%qpf_validday%% The day that the contour map is valid for
%%qpf_validtime%% The ending time the contour map is valid through
%%qpf_header%% The header of the textual forecast
%%qpf_text%% The body of the QPF report (minus the lat/lon points)
%%total_coordsets%% The total number of coord sets
%%qpf_get_coordset_data#_vvcategory%% The coordinate precip level (.01, .25, .5, ... 5, 6). # should be replaced with a number between 0 and %%total_coordsets%%
%%qpf_get_coordset_data#_vvpts_total%% The total number of lat/lon coordinates in this contour group. # should be replaced with a number between 0 and %%total_coordsets%%
%%qpf_get_coordset_data#_vvpts_lonZ%% An individual longitude from the coordinate group. # should be replaced with a number between 0 and %%total_coordsets%%, "Z" indicated which lon, with-in the group to use "Z" should be a value between 0 and %%qpf_get_coordset_data#_vvpts_total%%
%%qpf_get_coordset_data#_vvpts_latZ%% An individual latitude from the coordinate group. # should be replaced with a number between 0 and %%total_coordsets%%, "Z" indicated which lat, with-in the group to use "Z" should be a value between 0 and %%qpf_get_coordset_data#_vvpts_total%%

 

FAQ

SUPPORT

You can find support for this plug-in via the online support forums, specifically the HW3image and HW3Plugins forum.

Release History:

Nov 13, 2005 - 2.0 Release

Jan 22 , 2005 - 1.1 Release

Sep 15 , 2004 - 1.0 Release