NC, NetCDF

NetCDF .nc format is a massively complex scientific format that sometimes imports as a very large number of images and tables.  Working with data in NetCDF often requires expert-level understanding of the various conventions assumed to apply in the relationships between various tables, so that SQL can be used to effect whatever JOINs or other operations are required to work with the data.   This topic shows an exceptionally simple example.

 

 

To import from NC format:

 

  1. Choose File-Import from the main menu.

  2. In the Import dialog browse to the folder containing data of interest.

  3. Double-click the file ending in .nc for the data of interest.

  4. Images and tables will be created.

 

 

 

We can double-click on images that are created to view them.

 

 

For a more interesting display, we first create a new data source using a Bing street maps image server as shown in the Example: An Imageserver Tutorial topic.   We then create a map and drag and drop the Bing layer into the map, and then we drag and drop an image  into the map.   We can see from the display above that the data set uses a range of longitudes as 0 to 360 instead of the more typical GIS standard of -180 to +180.

 

 

We use the Style pane to color the image using a palette and to apply hill shading, as seen above.    The display shows terrain elevation and bathymetry for the entire world.

 

Notes

Use Folders - Importing .nc files can create staggeringly many components.   To keep those from being mixed into existing components in a project, first create a folder and then, with the focus on the folder (click the folder in the Project pane to highlight it), do the import.  That will place all imported components into the folder.

 

See Also

Style

 

Maps

 

Images

 

DEM, GTOPO30