The Story:

In order to fulfil its mission European air traffic control EUROCONTROL and DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH (DFS, air traffic control [ATC] authority in Germany) need customized data of a number of meteorological parameters. One of these is the current precipitation situation which is assessed by Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Germany’s National Meteorological Service, on the basis of its proprietary RADAR network and provided in the form of various pixel based products.

DWD has licensed EuRadCustomizer, which is a software system that was developed by MeteoSolutions-Bitstore Darmstadt GmbH, in order to quickly and flexibly responds to the specific needs of DWD’s customers. This system is used for the processing of pixel based data and stands out for its reliability and flexibility as it is highly configurable. The main task is to provide in parallel different radar composits with classified rainfall intensities on the basis of a European composite with RADAR reflectivities. This data output is suited to the requirements of the respective ATC authorities i.e. the spatial or radiometric resolution or geodesic projection etc. The results can be provided in air traffic control specific ASTERIX CAT009 format (1st and 2nd edition) or in HDF5 format using the OPERA convention.

Since 2013 DWD operates the software system on a 24/7 service level which proves the high robustness and fault tolerance of the system.

robustness and fault tolerance of the system.

The Software:

The software EuRadCustomizer was further developed in the last years. Therefore, the following list gives an overview:

Input Data:
  • pixel based weather radar data in HDF5 format
  • pixel based weather radar data in GRIB2 format
  • pixel based weather radar data in RADOLAN format (DWD specific format)
  • point data in XML format
  • polygons in JSON, GeoJSON or ASCII format
Features:
  • converts point data to pixel based data
  • converts polygons to pixel based data and vice versa
  • converts the pixel based values (e.g. dBZ to mm/h, extracts max values of a pixel area, crates class values etc.)
  • converts the grid (e.g. dimension, number of grid points, pixel size, geographic projection etc.)
  • allows the combination of several input data to generate a new product
  • the software is scalable
Output Data:
  • pixel based data in ASTERIX CAT009 format (1st edition)
  • pixel based data in ASTERIX CAT009 format (2nd edition)
  • pixel based weather radar data in HDF5 format (OPERA convention)
  • pixel based data in RADOLAN format (DWD specific format)
  • polygons in in XML format (IWXXM)
  • polygons in GeoJSON format

For validation purposes we also offer a software to generate pixel based data (e.g. weather radar data) to ensure an accurate representation of the values and correct geographic positioning in ATC systems.

The software was developed for LINUX / UNIX – operating systems.

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