Graphics: RIP - RIP User Input File

Once the RIP data has been created with RIPDP, the next step is to prepare the user input file (UIF) for RIP (see Chapter 4 of the RIP users’ guide for details). This file is a text file, which tells RIP which plots you want and how they should be plotted. A sample UIF, called rip_sample.in, is provided in the RIP tar file. This sample can serve as a template for the many UIF's that you will eventually create.

A UIF is divided into two main sections.
- The first section specifies various general parameters regarding the set up of RIP, in a namelist format (userin - which controls the general input specifications; and trajcalc - which controls the creation of trajectories).
- The second section is the plot specification table, which is used to specify which plots will be generated. (We will talk more about the PST when we look at examples.)

Below is a list if variables available in the userin namelist.

Variable	Value	Description
idotitle	1	Control first part of title.
title	‘auto’	Define your own title, or allow RIP to generate one.
titlecolor	‘def.foreground’	Control color of the title.
iinittime	1	Print initial date and time (in UTC) on plot.
ifcsttime	1	Print forecast lead-time (in hours) on plot.
ivalidtime	1	Print valid date and time (in both UTC and local time) on plot.
inearesth	0	This allows you to have the hour portion of the initial and valid time be specified with two digits, rounded to the nearest hour, rather than the standard 4-digit HHMM specification.
timezone	-7.0	Specifies the offset from Greenwich time.
iusdaylightrule	1	Flag to determine if US daylight saving should be applied.
ptimes	9.0E+09	Times to process. This can be a string of times (e.g. 0,3,6,9,12,) or a series in the form of A,-B,C, which means "times from hour A, to hour B, every C hours" (e.g. 0,-12,3,). Either ptimes or iptimes can be used, but not both. You can plot all available times, by omitting both ptimes and iptimes from the namelist, or by setting the first value negative.
ptimeunits	‘h’	Time units. This can be ‘h’ (hours), ‘m’ (minutes), or ‘s’ (seconds). Only valid with ptimes.
iptimes	99999999	Times to process. This is an integer array that specifies desired times for RIP to plot, but in the form of 8-digit "mdate" times (i.e. YYMMDDHH). Either ptimes or iptimes can be used, but not both. You can plot all available times, by omitting both ptimes and iptimes from the namelist, or by setting the first value negative.
tacc	1.0	Time tolerance in seconds. Any time in the model output that is within tacc seconds of the time specified in ptimes/iptimes will be processed.
flmin, flmax, fbmin, ftmax	.05, .95, .10, .90	Left, right, bottom and top frame limit
ntextq	0	Text quality specifier (0=high; 1=medium; 2=low).
ntextcd	0	Text font specifier [0=complex (Times); 1=duplex (Helvetica)].
fcoffset	0.0	This is an optional parameter you can use to "tell" RIP that you consider the start of the forecast to be different from what is indicated by the forecast time recorded in the model output. Examples: fcoffset=12 means you consider hour 12 in the model output to be the beginning of the true forecast.
idotser	0	Generate time series output files (no plots) only an ASCII file that can be used as input to a plotting program.
idescriptive	1	Use more descriptive plot titles.
icgmsplit	0	Split metacode into several files.
maxfld	10	Reserve memory for RIP.
ittrajcalc	0	Generate trajectory output files (use namelist trajcalc when this is set).
imakev5d	0	Generate output for Vis5D
ncarg_type	‘cgm’	Output type required. Options are ‘cgm’ (default), ‘ps’, ‘pdf’, ‘pdfL’, ‘x11’. Where ‘pdf’ is portrait and ‘pdfL’ is landscape.
istopmiss	1	This switch determines the behavior for RIP when a user-requested field is not available. The default is to stop. Setting the switch to 0 tells RIP to ignore the missing field and to continue plotting.
rip_root	‘/dev/null’	Overwrite the environment variable RIP_ROOT.

Running RIP