netCDF Primer   | Software   | netCDF Online     | WOCE Conventions

1. Creating netCDF files with netCDF source files

NetCDF (network Common Data Form) is an interface for array-oriented data access and a library that provides an implementation of the interface. The netCDF library also defines a machine-independent format for representing scientific data. Together, the interface, library, and format support the creation, access, and sharing of scientific data. The netCDF software was developed at the Unidata Program Center in Boulder, Colorado. The freely available UNIX compressed tar file source is available on this DVD or online from Unidata .

2. Accessing, displaying, and manipulating netCDF data.

There are many freely available and commercial packages and utilities for accessing, displaying, and manipulating netCDF data.

Freely available software includes:

• ncBrowse (included on these DVDs) is a Java application that provides flexible, interactive graphical displays of data and attributes from a wide range of netCDF data file conventions.
• ncdump (compiled version for Windows included on this DVD, for Macs available online ) converts netCDF files to an ASCII human-readable form.
• ncgen (compiled version for Windows included on this DVD, for Macs available online) converts the ASCII human-readable form back to a binary netCDF file or a C or FORTRAN program for generating the netCDF file.

Licensed or commercial software packages include Matlab, IDL and PV-Wave.

For the many other software packages that can be used to manipulate or display netCDF data. please see http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/software.html . Another guide to netCDF utilities is available from http://www.gfdl.gov/~jps/GFDL_VG_NetCDF_Utils.html .