Example of perspective display.
The one significant software change that was required to support this
display capability was to the vertical interpolation routines. For a
given radar, there was a requirement to not interpolate a wind to a
plan view level if the vertical gap between the two levels with data
above and below was more than 4000 feet. Previous to OB7, the only
way a vertical column of data could be treated as if some interior
part of the column had missing data was if there was a level present
that had an undefined data value. To illustrate, consider the following
two colums of temperature data:
6000ft 270K 9500ft 260K
5500ft 271K 9000ft 261K
5000ft undef 8500ft 262K
4500ft 273K 1500ft 275K
4000ft 274K 1000ft 276K
The way the software worked previous to OB7, the temperature value
for 5000ft could be recognized as undefined in the first column,
but not in the second. This was not an issue for profiler data
because the profiler data reported all levels in the data whether
they had defined data values or not. The VWP only reports those
levels where winds are defined. For OB7, the vertical interpolation
software was changed so that if the vertical distance between two
consecutive levels with data is greater than some specified
value, then levels that fall between will be considered to have
an undefined value. Whether the data is being treated in this
manner, and the exact vertical distance used, is all definable
in a design file.
