:allow_comments: False .. _doc_about_news: News ==== 2025-06-17: Version 1.16 ------------------------ On our way to version 2.0, we are proud to announce the release of version 1.16. * Front detection is now part of the main Met.3D version * Revised session handling (removed session manager, switch to a file-based drag'n'drop approach) * Switch to Qt6, revised OpenGL handling, removed QCustomPlot library * Many bugfixes and improvements, e.g., for batch mode, high-DPI displays, WSL support, and more. Download the sources from gitlab: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/-/tags .. important:: With Met.3D v1.16 we have updated to Qt6. You need to update your conda/mamba environments, cf. :doc:`/02_getting_started/installation/src_conda`. 2025-06-09: EuroVis 2025 and further updates... ----------------------------------------------- Last week, Christoph and Marc presented our progress with Met.3D at the EuroVis 2025 conference in Luxembourg: https://doi.org/10.2312/evp.20251144 More and more, we are approaching our major milestone of a new version 2.0! We are also in the progress of slowly updating this documentation. The old Met.3D website at https://met3d.wavestoweather.de will soon be taken offline and this online documentation will become the main web resource for Met.3D. 2025-02-21: Version 1.15 ------------------------ Download the sources from gitlab: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/-/tags 2024-09-04: Version 1.13 ------------------------ We are proud to announce the release of version 1.13. The version features a completely revised trajectory analysis module, improved support for open data by DWD and ECMWF, new shadows computation, and many bugfixes and small improvements. See https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/-/milestones/16 for details. We present this Met.3D version at this year‘s Annual Meeting of the European Meteorological Society in Barcelona, Spain: Rautenhaus, M., Fischer, C., Vogt, T., Beckert, A., and Fuchs, S.: Towards Met.3D version 2: Rapid exploration of numerical weather prediction data by means of interactive 3-D visualization, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-946, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-946, 2024. Fischer, C., Vogt, T., Beckert, A., Fuchs, S., Radke, T., and Rautenhaus, M.: Novel 3-D and AI-based weather forecast products based on open data, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-949, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-949, 2024 2024-09-01: Sign up for the Met.3D newsletter --------------------------------------------- Sign up for our new Met.3D newsletter email list. We‘ll keep you informed about updates, bugfixes, new functionality, tutorials, and so on. https://lists.uni-hamburg.de/mailman/listinfo/met3d-news.hcds 2024-06-10: Version 1.12 ------------------------ Version 1.12 is available, finally adding the Kern et al. (2018) jetcore detection actor to the main Met.3D version, adding a new weather radar actor that visualizes radar data from the German Weather Service, and a multitude of further improvements. * See the repository: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/-/milestones/15 * Download the sources from gitlab: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/-/tags 2024-03-21: Version 1.11 ------------------------ Version 1.11 is available, adding streambarbs visualization on horizontal section, improvements to the GRIB reader, an actor to display geometry data, and a multitude of further improvements. * See the repository: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/-/milestones/14 * Download the sources from gitlab: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/-/tags 2023-10-26: Met.3D on TV ------------------------ I had the honour yesterday to present Met.3D to the public in the "alle wetter!" show on "Hessischer Rundfunk". The interview is available here (around 7:10 min; the video is available until 24 October 2025): https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/alle-wetter/alle-wetter-vom-25-10-2023/hr-fernsehen/ZGNhZWU5ZjUtMmMzZS00MmJhLTkyOGYtODk1MzgyMTY5Y2I4 Thank you so much to the "alle wetter!" team! 2023-09-01: Version 1.9 ------------------------ Version 1.9 is available, adding a camera animation sequence tool, new colourmapping functionality, and adding several smaller usability improvements. * This release includes improvements made over the past months, see the repository: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/-/milestones/12 * A new camera animation sequence tool has been added to generation fly-through-animations. * Colour mapping functionality in the Transfer Function Actor has been improved. * Several further small usability improvements have been added. * A binary distribution is available for conda for Linux, see the online documentation. * Download the sources from gitlab: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/-/tags 2023-08-22: BAMS article... --------------------------- ... on how 3-D analysis with Met.3D revealed midlatitude overshooting convection during the CIRRUS-HL field experiment. Our article on how 3-D analysis with Met.3D revealed midlatitude overshooting convection during the CIRRUS-HL field experiment has just been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0103.1 Also watch the video: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0103.2 2023-08-18: A new method for... ------------------------------- ...3-D multiparameter trajectory visualization is based on Met.3D. A new method for 3-D multiparameter trajectory visualization is based on Met.3D - see the publication in Geoscientific Model Development: https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/16/4617/2023/ 2023-08-03: Highlight paper about 3-D front detection ----------------------------------------------------- Our new paper on 3-D front detection has just been published as a highlight paper in Geoscientific Model Development: https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/16/4427/2023/ 2023-02-01: Version 1.8 ------------------------ A new version 1.8 is available, adding computation of partial derivatives and fixing several minor bugs. 2022-06-10: Geoscientific Model Development Article uses Met.3D... ------------------------------------------------------------------ ...to investigate 3-D potential vorticity anomalies. A new publication in Geoscientific Model Development uses Met.3D to investigate 3-D potential vorticity anomalies: https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/15/4447/2022/ 2021-09-21: Version 1.7 ----------------------- A new version 1.7 is available, improving map projection support, and adding computation of relative humidity and colouring of trajectories by an auxiliary variable. * This release include improvements made over the past year, see the issue tracker: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/milestones/10 * Map projection support has been improved to support arbitrary proj-supported projections: https://proj.org/ * Trajectories can be coloured by an arbitrary auxiliary variable. * New derived variables have been added, e.g. relative humidity. * The binary distribution is available for Linux, see the downloads page. 2021-09-16: Weather and Climate Dynamics Article uses Met.3D... --------------------------------------------------------------- ...to investigate Marine Cold Air Outbreaks and Polar Lows. A new publication in Weather and Climate Dynamics uses Met.3D to investigate Marine Cold Air Outbreaks and Polar Lows in ERA-5 data: https://wcd.copernicus.org/articles/2/867/2021/wcd-2-867-2021.html 2020-04-02: Version 1.6 ----------------------- A new version 1.6 is available, adding a simple batch mode, improvements to the user interface, as well as a number of bugfixes. * While this version gets the next version number 1.6, we plan to change the version numbers in the future to a simple "YY.MM.number" format to better reflect the continuous work on Met.3D. We use both numbers for now. * A simple batch mode (configurable in the frontend.cfg file) allows to automatically produce time animations. * New utility scripts (see the new util/ directory) have been added that support download of forecast data from the DWD opendata sever. * A "status light" has been added to indicate that the pipeline is processing. * New derived variables have been added, e.g. PV for hybrid sigma pressure grids. * Several bugs have been fixed, including erroneous coastlines and a bug in the raycaster that caused wrong illumination close to borders. * A binary distribution is available for Linux, see the downloads page. * Some bugfixes, see the issue tracker: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/milestones/9 2020-01-20: ECMWF Newsletter article... --------------------------------------- ...about 3D forecast session at Cyclone Workshop 2019. A short newsletter article about our 3D weather forecasting session at the Cyclone Workshop 2019 has just appeared in the recently published ECMWF Newsletter Vol. 162. The article can be read online here (https://www.ecmwf.int/en/newsletter/162/news/cyclone-workshop-showcases-3d-visualisation), the full PDF of the Newsletter is available here (https://www.ecmwf.int/en/elibrary/81148-newsletter-no-162-winter-201920). 2019-07-29: Version 1.5 ----------------------- A new version 1.5 is available, adding support for interactive Skew-T diagrams. Also, a binary archive is now available for download. * Interactive Skew-T diagrams. The diagrams can be displayed within the 3D scene (attached to a pole), as well as as a stand-alone diagram. Ensemble support is provided in the form of spaghetti plots. * A binary distribution is now available for Linux, see the downloads page. * Some bugfixes, see the issue tracker. 2019-06-23: New presentation about Met.3D at ECMWF -------------------------------------------------- On 11 June 2019, Marc gave a presentation about Met.3D at the ECMWF workshop on observational campaigns for better weather forecasts. The slides are available here (https://events.ecmwf.int/event/118/contributions/497/attachments/136/238/OCBWF-Rautenhaus.pdf), a recording is available here. 2018-12-01: Survey article on "Visualization in Meteorology" ------------------------------------------------------------ Our article on "Visualization in Meteorology-A Survey of Techniques and Tools for Data Analysis Tasks" (https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2017.2779501) is featured in the December 2018 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (https://www.computer.org/web/tvcg), also discussing Met.3D and related 3D software. The article is currently (December 2018) available for free from the TVCG website. 2018-11-01: Presentation about use of Met.3D at ECMWF ----------------------------------------------------- On 17 October 2018, Tim Hewson (ECMWF) gave a presentation about the use of Met.3D at ECMWF at the 29th European Working Group on Operational Meteorological Workstations (EGOWS) meeting. The slides are available here: https://www.ecmwf.int/sites/default/files/elibrary/2018/18698-using-met3d-ecmwf.pdf 2018-10-17: Meet us at IEEE VIS 2018 in Berlin ---------------------------------------------- Michael Kern and Alexander Kumpf will present their latest papers on "Interactive 3D Visual Analysis of Atmospheric Fronts" and on "Visual Analysis of the Temporal Evolution of Ensemble Forecast Sensitivities" at the IEEE Visualization Conference 2018 (October 21-26, 2018) in Berlin, Germany. We'd be pleased to meet you there to discuss our work! 2018-10-17: RC for Version 1.4 ------------------------------ We are happy to announce a release candidate for a new Met.3D version 1.4! New features include: * Computation of 3D trajectories (path lines) and streamlines. The trajectory actor now allows to connect to "seed" actors (that can be poles, 2D sections, a 3D bounding box), from which trajectories or streamlines can be computed. If the seed actor is changed, the trajectories are updated, allowing for interactive analysis. * Revised dataset and configuration handling. Met.3D now starts without any configuration files (pipeline/frontend) specified (although they still can be specified) in a default mode; datasets can be loaded from the user interface (Menu "File"). * Support is now integrated to read ensemble data from NetCDF files that is structured such that each member is stored in a separate file, without a dedicated ensemble dimension. * Many bugfixes and small usability improvements, see the issue tracker. 2018-07-06: Met.3D image appears as cover for BAMS -------------------------------------------------- A 3D visualization created with Met.3D appears on the front cover of the May 2018 issue of the "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society" (https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/99/5/bams.99.issue-5.xml). The image shows data from the article "Flow-Dependent Reliability: A Path to More Skillful Ensemble Forecasts" by Mark Rodwell et al. Thank you to Mark for this cooperation and to our student Florian Märkl for help with creating the image. For creation of the image, we used direct volume rendering functionality implemented by Florian in his Bachelor's thesis. 2018-03-15: Version 1.3 ----------------------- We are happy to announce the release of the new Met.3D version 1.3! New features include: * Support for auxiliary pressure fields. This enables Met.3D to load simulation data on any vertical level type, as long as a 3D pressure field can be provided. Internally, Met.3D continues to use pressure as the vertical coordinate. For example, COSMO data on hybrid-geometric-height or constant-geometric-height levels can be visualized (try with the data from http://opendata.dwd.de/weather/cosmo/!). * Basic data statistics can be displayed: For each variable in an actor, the button "data statistics" shows a histogram of data values of the grid, as well as min/max/mean. This is useful, e.g., if the range of data values is not known. * Support for scientific notation in many properties. You can now enter very small or large numbers as, e.g., "1.38E-11". * The old ECMWF grip_api library has been replaced by the new eccodes library. * Support for Qt5 (this Met.3D version still also supports Qt4) * The Session manager now supports session revisions, the user can restore an earlier version of a session. * Basic support for derived variables. Met.3D can now compute wind speed, potential temperature, equivalent potential temperature, geopotential height, and a few more variables from basic input variables on-the-fly. * Scene annotations (time labels, northward arrow) etc. can be disabled and configured. * Many bugfixes and small usability improvements... see: https://gitlab.com/wxmetvis/met.3d/milestones/3 Notes: * The default directory for session and other configuration files has been changed to "~/met3d" -- if you have sessions stored in "~/.met3d", you need to copy these files to the new directory. * Please look at the new "default_pipeline.cfg.template" file to learn about new keyword for the pipeline. For instance, you can specify the variable to be used as the auxiliary pressure field, and specify the variables to be used to compute derived variables. * On some systems, we encountered an issue with eccodes that was solved after the library was locally recompiled with its ENABLE_ECCODES_THREADS enabled. See the eccodes installation page for instructions and set ENABLE_ECCODES_THREADS to true. 2017-10-19: Met.3D appears in new book -------------------------------------- Met.3D appears in the new book "Minding the Weather - How Expert Forecasters Think" by Robert R. Hoffman and colleagues! Take a look at this great book on human cognition in weather forecasting! 2017-10-18: Version 1.2 ----------------------- With a few minor bugs fixed in the release candidate 1.2-RC1, we are happy to announce the release of the new Met.3D version 1.2! New features include: * Session manager added: Met.3D now features a comprehensive session manager that can save the complete status of the application. Sessions can be restored and the user can switch between multiple sessions at runtime (press F6!) * Revised bounding box handling: Bounding boxes are now centralized (not per-actor anymore), so that the bounding box of multiple actors can be changed simultaneously (press F3!) * Basic support for COSMO datasets! COSMO data on rotated grids and currently on pressure levels can be read from NetCDF files output by COSMO. Basemap and graticule can be rotated accordingly * Initial support for a Metview-Met.3D connection (Metview is ECMWF's visualization workstation): Met.3D can be opened directly from Metview * Interaction handles of 2D sections, poles etc. now display the current lon/lat/p position beside the mouse cursor * Interaction mode can now be easily switched by double-clicking the scene * Image export has been extended to automatically save all time steps of an animation * Surface pressure fields for hybrid sigma-pressure levels in GRIB files can now also be stored as lnsp * An option to display an arrow pointing north in a view * Improved customization of contour lines (arbitrary "contour sets" with custom colours and line widths) * When an actor is loaded from file and a required transfer function is missing, the user is prompted to select the matching transfer function * Many bugfixes and small usability improvements... 2017-09-22: Meet us at IEEE VIS 2017 in Phoenix ----------------------------------------------- Michael Kern and Alexander Kumpf will present their latest papers on "Robust Detection and Visualization of Jet-stream Core Lines in Atmospheric Flow" and on "Visualizing Confidence in Cluster-based Ensemble Weather Forecast Analyses" at the IEEE Visualization Conference 2017 (October 1-6, 2017) in Phoenix, Arizona. We'd be pleased to meet you there to discuss our work! 2017-09-22: New Met.3D website online ------------------------------------- Our new Met.3D website has gone online! 2017-04-25: Version 1.1 ----------------------- We are happy to announce the release of Met.3D version 1.1! New features include: * An interactive transfer function editor and functionality for basic direct volume rendering (DVR) has been added. * Support for textured filled contours in horizontal sections to facilitate stippling and hatching. * The synchronization control supports restriction of allowed times to available times in selected datasets and provides enhanced animation control. * Visualizations can be directly saved to a graphics file from a scene view by pressing “s”. * The trajectory actor can be created at runtime. * Support for cmake to compile the source code. * Enhanced support for contour line appearance in 2D sections. * Support for different camera navigation modes: move camera, rotate scene, 2D top view. * Many further small usability improvements...