HDF Viewer

What the users have said:

The program is a joy to use for both EUMETCast and Internet data - Douglas Deans.

Download the HDF Viewer
Register the HDF Viewer - please help support continued development

What is the HDF Viewer?

The HDF Viewer is a Windows program which visualises the HDF data from the Land Surface Analysis (LSA) Satellite Application Facility (SAF) LSA-SAF broadcast over EUMETCast or over FTP from the LSA-SAF Web site. You can visit the Yahoo MSG-1 group to talk with other LSA-SAF users. You can use the program interactively, or as part of a hands-free procedure to process the data completely automatically.

What data format does it read?

LSA-SAF data available from the EUMETCast system (as used for Meteosat-8/9 reception). This data covers Europe, North and South Africa, and South America.
LSA-SAF data available over FTP from the LSA-SAF Web site.
LSA-SAF Albedo (various channels and wavebands) and snow-cover data.

Please note that the files from EUMETCast are sent in a BZ2 compressed format to reduce the bandwidth requirement. If you use my MSG Data Manager software, this can automatically unzip the data for you. The HDF Viewer will automatically unzip BZ2 data on-the-fly, otherwise you can use a BZ2 unzip program.

Sample file names:
    S-LSA_-HDF5_LSASAF_MSG_DSLF_NAfr_200905190830.bz2
    S-LSA_-HDF5_LSASAF_MSG_DSLF_Euro_200905190000.bz2
    S-LSA_-HDF5_LSASAF_MSG_DSSF_Euro_200905190000.bz2

How do I get the data?

The data is free from EUMETSAT and is delivered over the same EUMETCast system used for Meteosat-8 data. You may need to make one small change to your recv-channels.ini file to enable data reception. Please note that editing the recv-channels.ini on a live system may cause a momentary break in the data. If you have then entry [*] for the channels to receive you need make no change. The notes below are only a guide - your particular recv-channels.ini may differ. Note that this is not the recv.ini file! Please consult your system vendor before making any changes! Please do not send me questions about this - please either ask the person who supplied your TelliCast software (e.g. EUMETSAT), or ask on the Yahoo MSG-1 group.

Possible changes to recv-channels.ini
You may not need these!

Before

After

    
[EUMETSAT Data Channel 1]
target_directory=received

[EUMETSAT Data Channel 2]
target_directory=received

[EUMETSAT Data Channel 3]
target_directory=received

  
[EUMETSAT Data Channel 1]
target_directory=received

[EUMETSAT Data Channel 2]
target_directory=received

[EUMETSAT Data Channel 3]
target_directory=received

[SAF-Europe]
target_directory=received

In the MSG Data Manager, on the Setup, MDD/SAF tab, be sure to check the Land Surface - LSA checkbox, and to check the Unzip SAF files checkbox.

Please consult the LSA-SAF Web site for details of registering for the data over FTP which includes North and South Africa and South America data in addition to the European data broadcast over EUMETCast.

What do the results look like?

Here are some reduced-size screen shots from the program. There are three products currently available, the land surface temperature and two down-welling flux estimates - one for short wavelength radiation (0.3ľm-4.0ľm) and anther for long wavelength radiation (thermal infra-red). More about the data.

Sample long-wave flux image
Down-welling surface long-wave flux

Sample shortwave flux image
Down-welling surface shortwave flux

Can I register and what do I get?

A licence code is required for this software, after the 30-day trial period.

Suggestions for future developments are welcome.

Download the HDF Viewer

V1.3.0	Add support for new vegetation products (vegetation cover, leaf area index, absorbed photosynthetic active radiation, Europe, North and South Africa, South America).
V1.3.2	Revise Open Latest function (revise file checks to look for DSLF or DSSF files, find latest of either .BZ2 or .HDF5 files, allows for mixed compressed and uncompressed files), improved error handling, returns ERRORLEVEL for checking in batch-jobs.
V1.4.2	Accept files dropped from Explorer to open them, add optional timestamp to images, correct missing files from multiple data sets.
V1.4.4	Add support for ET (Evapotranspiration) data, on BZ2 decompress error, exit with error-level in batch mode.

Download the HDF Viewer V1.4.4 (2010 Feb 04; 1,277,094 bytes)
Register the HDF Viewer - please help support continued development
If you don't already have my runtime Library Bundle, please download and install it (do this if you get messages about missing DLLs when trying to run the program).
For country outlines, you can use the file Countries.dat, which may already be on your PC or you can download it here (460KB).