Using the Product Viewer Home Product Viewer Product Table Product Descriptions Model Description Model Data Access

General Notes

The Product Viewer provides an easy-to-use interface to the 47,000 graphic and text products produced daily by WAVEWATCH III. Here are a few notes on using the viewer.

The "Choose a Model" allows you to select from the three models, Global, Great Lakes with NAM winds, and Great Lakes with NDFD winds. The home page has a table of shortcuts that go directly to the subregions without requiring that you choose the region from the popup menu.

The "Choose a Region" list is scrollable and lists all of the available regions and subregions depending on the model selected. The home page has a table of shortcuts that go directly to the subregions without requiring that you choose the region from the popup menu.

Space constraints limit the product names in the upper right of the Viewer. The full names are given in the graphic images themselves, and are for the most part indicating that the products include the parameter direction (Significant Peak Direction, Primary Swell Mean Direction, etc.) and are indicated in the images by the red arrows.

Buoy Data

Individual Buoys are marked on the images as small colored squares and circles. They can be identified by pointing your cursor at the mark and reading the ID in the "Buoy ID" box just above the Viewer animation controls. By selecting one or more of the check boxes to the right of the Buoy ID box, labeled "Bulletin", "Spectra", and "Sources", and then clicking on the buoy marker in the image you can view the spectral source terms and data reported by the model at that location. A tutorial on interpreting the spectral and source term graphics is available here.

Viewer Animation Controls

The controls for the animation loop are mostly self-explanatory, but here are a few hints to their operation.

• Loop Images:
  • <<: loop backwards
  • >>: loop forwards
• Adjust Speed: The increment is fairly small, so a few clicks may be needed before the animation speed changes significantly.
• Advance One: This is the single-frame stepper.
  • |<: go to the beginning of the loop
  • >|: go to the end of the loop.
  • < and >: single-step backwards and forwards respectively.

A short description of the product is given just below the image. More detailed information on the products can be found by clicking on the "Product Descriptions" link in the menubar at the top of the page.