Space Weather Interpretation SoftwarePresented by Andrew Downs

CONTACT

Andrew Downs

Email: adowns@unm.eduPhone: 505-400-0311

REFERENCES

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_Data_Format2. http://cdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FITS4. http://ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/solar/solardataservices.html5. http://ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/satellite/satdataservices.html6. http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/aiahmi/browse.php7. http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/8. http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ASC/level2/

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Any and all information pertaining to the creation of this project would not be possible without the continued assistance of:

• Misty Crown, Mentor who works in conjunction with AFRL

• William Zortman, Technical advisor from Sandia Labs

RESULTS

Plotting ResultsThe results that were obtained from my own graphs are shown on the left and the actual information that should have been graphed is shown on the right. Both match up.

FITS Movie ResultsIn all cases, arbitrary date ranges were used as shown below. CONCLUSIONS

The software system that had been implemented has been successful in producing accurate plots as well as correctly made AVI movies. Although it is not reasonable to check any and all input data for plotting purposes due to the vast size of some of the data (in the range of as much as ~150,000 data points), there are several error-correcting techniques that could be implemented into the code in order for the plotting to be correct for nearly all inputs.

DISCUSSION

PlottingIn all cases, the plotted results seemed to match up with the expected values that needed to be visually shown. Due to the way the coding for the program was implemented, plotting is done using index values from a multi-dimensional array. In all cases, if the correct index values are specified, the resulting plot should always be correct as well.

FITS MoviesIn order to check for correctness of the outputted FITS movies, simply the input needs to be checked for correctness. As long as the input image list is in order, the output movie will be correct and in the same order as well.

METHODOLOGY

Program for Verification of .HDF Data: HDFViewProgram for Verification of .CDF Data: CDFedit

Plotting VerificationCDF and HDF files are both similar in their structure in that they can hold information in multi-dimensional arrays. In order to verify the correctness of plotted data, small ranges of data points (in the 20-50 point range) were plotted from both the beginning of the available data as well as the end. This allowed the data to be easily read by a human and can be double checked with the actual data itself.

FITS File VerificationThe goal of the FITS file program was simply to convert a range of FITS file images into an AVI movie. In general, there is not a simulation that can be performed to verify results, but the correctness can simply be checked by making sure the proper output is obtained from the range of input FITS images.

INTRODUCTION

Currently, the AFRL uses data in the form of Sun, solar activity, upper atmosphere data, as well as solar storm and solar variability visuals. All this data is spread across several HTTP and FTP servers provided as public information. In addition to this, the data is held in several different file formats, for example CDF, HDF, and FITS files.

At the moment, the only way to access the needed information is through individual querying of data from several different space weather websites. The goal of this software however, will be to pull all this information simultaneously and through the user interface. The user will be able to graph the wanted data based on time and other user-specified constraints, as well as creating a movie file from FITS file images of the Sun.

This software will be able to lessen the difficulty of graphing and plotting the information as well as being able to display in a human-readable format.

A simple verification and results of the methodology used for verification are presented and discussed.