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Anyone using Vista Data Vision?


BNZLTER Nov 12, 2008 10:56 PM

Hi We are considering buying Vista Data Vision through Campbell and are working through the trial addition. Are there any users here who have experience using this program for monitoring multiple climate stations.
Thanks
Brian


Karl Nov 17, 2008 11:08 PM

Brian,

Below are is a web link to one of our customers using VDV (from our web site), and the second is a link to Vista's web site with links to many more customers using the software.

http://www.portneufriver.org/ and http://www.vistadatavision.com/index.php?page=open-vdv-websites

Hope this helps.

Regards,


Robin Nov 18, 2008 03:35 AM

We use it here in New Zealand and have 40+ stations on in. Not really any problems at all and a good way for station owners to access their data without any of the associated telemetry issues.


Thorarinn Nov 18, 2008 02:14 PM

Brian,

There are many users of Vista Data Vision and several of them have open access to some of their data. Our users range from monitoring a single weather station to monitoring several hundred sites in different fields.

These links can give you an example of how people are using Vista Data Vision.

University Centre in Svalbard - Norway, http://158.39.11.102/vdv/VV_Frame.php
They have weather stations located in Svalbard.

New Jersey Meadowslands Commission, NJ, USA, http://merigis.njmeadowlands.gov/vdv/Index.php

US Army Corps of Engineering, Fort Wainwright, Alaska, USA, http://137.229.20.23/vdv/VV_Frame.php
For further information on this project see http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/projects/ak_meteorologicaldata/

To get more information on Vista Data Vision you can contact us at vdv@vistadatavision.com.

Best Regards,
Thorarinn Andresson
Vista Engineering


shollingsed Jun 14, 2010 05:07 PM

Has anyone tried loading other output formats other than .dat files? I've tried some in .csv, but VDV seems to only like .dat files.


MikeW Jun 18, 2010 03:04 AM

if you have the proper timestamp(see a table based output) in the csv and append a "TOA5" or "TOACI1" header which I think has to have "RECNBR" but can be a plug. Wont take tab delimited.

"TOACI1","birtle2","birtle_15min"
"TMSTAMP","RECNBR","StnID","Air_T","RH","Rain","AvgWS","AvgWD","AvgSD","Rain2"
"2010-03-01 00:15:00",57700,216,-12.14,93.4,0,1.977,164.5,9.01,0
"2010-03-01 00:30:00",57701,216,-12.39,94,0,2.383,156.1,6.074,0

I think I have also imported without the quotes

Mike

* Last updated by: MikeW on 6/17/2010 @ 9:12 PM *


MikeW Jun 18, 2010 03:22 AM

when showing precip in a bar graph, and there is no recorded precip in the time frame you are looking in, why does vista show a negative scale? (i would link you to my site but all 40 stations are raining) The zero line is at the top of the graph and it descends down to -1.

I have lots of issues with vista vision and its shortfalls that RTMC pro has conquered in the last couple of years (date offset (for table based 24 hr output))so make sure you know what you need.

RTMC (pro) needs a "WDQ" like function to properly show wind direction, if anything, allow 3 figure outputs ...ie 030 deg or 003 degrees instead of 30 or 3.....(just a dig to CSI)

I would like to encourage some dialogue on the two apps if anyone is interested....


aps Jun 18, 2010 08:48 AM

MikeW said:

"RTMC (pro) needs a "WDQ" like function to properly show wind direction, if anything, allow 3 figure outputs ...ie 030 deg or 003 degrees instead of 30 or 3.....(just a dig to CSI)"

Noted and passed to the development team for consideration.


catskin Jun 18, 2010 09:13 PM

I use VDV here, but our use is rather simple, you can view what we have here:

http://tumalo.dyndns.org:6725/VDV/Index.php

use user/user to login


Andres Jun 18, 2010 10:25 PM

Hello shollingsed,
db.robot.c is set to work with data retrieved from the CSI range of dataloggers using Loggernet. However, there are endless other data formats around. To cope with these other data formats, VDV is offering the VDV.FileConverter. The purpose of the File Converter is to work with any data format, where each line includes time stamp and the seperator may be comma, tab, space etc.

I hope this helps,
Andres Thorarinsson, VDV


Andres Jun 18, 2010 10:35 PM

Hello MikeW,

"when showing precip in a bar graph, and there is no recorded precip in the time frame you are looking in, why does vista show a negative scale? (i would link you to my site but all 40 stations are raining) The zero line is at the top of the graph and it descends down to -1. "

You are right, when using auto scale, and all values are 0 (zero) then the lower end of the Y-axis drops to -1. However, you could choose to set both ends of the Y-scale to fixed values, like 0 at bottom and (5) at the top.

Hope this helps,
Andres


Andres Jun 18, 2010 10:41 PM

Hello catskin,

how nice system you are running, so many stations and so much data, all clearly organised. There is a detail or two that could look differently, if you are interested to discuss, please email me directly at andres@vista.is.

Regareds,
Andres


shollingsed Jun 21, 2010 12:55 PM

Is there a link to download the VDV.FileConverter? I would like to see if this would work in our situation.


Andres Jun 21, 2010 01:32 PM

Hello shollingsed,

thanks for your interest. The VDV.FileConverter is downloaded from our ftp site, there is an access code to the ftp site, and the file is a 30 days version. To proceed, either ask CSI for such access code or send email direct to vdv@vistadatavision.com with your request.

Thank you.


MikeW Jul 11, 2010 06:08 AM

Thanks Andres for your imput. I will definately set the lower end to zero but I must leave the top open, if 75 m.m. drops in a day, I would be in trouble with a 5 m.m. ceiling!

Another issue about the bar graph is that in table based output in CSI, the timestamp for my 24 hour data summated at midnight is date forwarded (ie the total rain for the 9th day of May has a timestamp of 10 May 0000) RTMC had finally solved this problem by having a time offset entry on the graph and in this case I use a -1 and its solved. With VDV the precip bar for the values from the 9th will be timestamped as the 10th on the graph, also the datestamps at the bottom scale of the graph has fixed intervals,...ie. shows every two days which confuses things even more.

I just lost my server and am in the midst of rebuilding and I will show link when I am done (we have over 40 stations to show),.....thanks again for the bar graph info and the file converter (which we will definately get)

Mike


Andres Jul 12, 2010 11:02 PM

Hello Mike W,

you are right about the auto scale, it is not perfect. One way of handling Y-axis would be have fixed lower (0) and fixed upper (5) but have additional auto on upper up to another higher max limit (80). Using this, graphs would look good and still able to cope with high values. This has been discussed but nothing decided yet.

You are right, if only single value is per day, a 2 day period is meaningless. The trick here is to asign (week, or 2 weeks or just pick from the list) as default period to these graphs, it is done in the page setup in db.data.browser. Therefore, when displaying such a graph, it will open up with the the period you have picked from the list.

One way to have the graph to look different is (during graph setup) to select a) Fill to zero, b) Bar Style as Cluster and choose (red) as color, and c) set points as Box. The bar are centered around the data time stamp. Clearly a time offset by 12 hours would make this look a lot better.

Let me know,
best regards,
Andres


BNZLTER Jul 14, 2010 12:16 AM

Hi Andres,
I can't see where in Page Setup you can change the default time scale. Can you give more details about this?
Thanks
Brian


Andres Jul 18, 2010 09:09 PM

Hello Brian,

the details about time scale of graphs may be found in the help files in db.data.browser (also found at our web site at
http://www.vistadatavision.com/uploads/file/manual/db.data.browser_manual.pdf), look for Page Setup/Graphs and scroll down on that page to find "To customize the look of graphs..." and read that section and a little more.

Note that VDV base does not include modification of time scale. If you happen to be using VDV base, please contact me at andres@vista.is to get db.data.browser in Standard Verions at no cost.

Please let me know,
best regards,
Andres

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