METVIEW meteorological data visualisation and processing software at ECMWF

Metview is the ECMWF's meteorological data visualisation and processing tool. By virtue of its design and extensive range of features, Metview can act as a complete working environment for operational and research meteorologists by providing powerful data management visualisation and processing tools. It can be seen as a meteorological desktop plotting package, thanks to its WYSIWYG visualisation, but is also a powerful meteorological data-processing software thanks to its macro language, and it can be used for routine production of meteorological charts in an operational environment.

Metview is based on ECMWF software for data access (MARS) and graphics (MAGICS). These reliable "workhorse" applications were in routine use at the time of Metview development and provide its underlying data retrieval/handling and plotting capability.

Metview's user interface is based on MOTIF and the X Windows system. Metview was designed for the UNIX environment and is highly portable within the UNIX world (SGI, HP, IBM, SUN and COMPAQ UNIX workstations). Metview has recently been ported to LINUX/GNU, thus widening considerably its potential for deployment by being able to run on comparatively very low-cost hardware. Metview has a modular architecture and was conceived as a fully distributed system, its modules being able to run on different machines.

Metview was developed as part of a co-operative project between ECMWF and INPE/CPTEC, Brazil, with assistance from Météo-France. The development started in 1991 and Metview was initially made available to ECMWF Member States and on exchange basis. Recently the limitations on Metview availability have been removed.