The Web Image Grabber For AWIPS Netscape (WIGFAN) software package was designed to bring images available on the world wide web into AWIPS for operational use. Since the AWIPS LAN is a secure network not physically located on the WWW, a means to grab, ingest, and display operationally useful data on the system was designed. The WIGFAN package runs mainly on the LDAD but also has display components within the AWIPS firewall.

The WIGFAN package runs a Perl script on the LDAD which periodically checks (via cron) specific web addresses for updated images. If updated, the Perl script will retrieve the image and place it onto the LDAD into /data/Incoming. The image is then ingested into AWIPS and placed on the DS. Netscape can be run on any workstation to display html pages which hold links to the locally-stored and LDAD collected data.

WIGFAN was designed to bring more operationally needed tools to the AWIPS platform. The need to jump between PCs and AWIPS is minimized. Since the imagery is stored locally, the display on Netscape has no dependence on bandwidth. The WIGFAN infrastructure, data flow, and imagery examples will be discussed and highlighted.