The Spatial Editor is controlled from the Spatial Editor legends, Grid Manager, Time Scale or the Button Bar, depending on what part of the display you wish to change. First we cover animation, then discuss how to make weather elements visible and editable with Spatial editor legends or the Grid Manager. Finally we talk about Edit Areas before moving on to the edit tool exercises.

The figure below is a snapshot of the Spatial Editor legends located in the lowest portion of the display. Not only do legends control the Spatial Editor, but they also convey information about the data current displayed in the Spatial Editor.

 
Much like the AWIPS display, the Spatial editor legends tell you which weather elements are loaded, which are displayed (and not displayed), which weather element is displayed as an image and which is currently editable. We discuss each state below.

 
Not Displayed - Weather elements that are not currently visible in the Spatial Editor are displayed in gray. If no grid occurs at the Spatial editor time, the legend date and time are replaced by "<No Grid>".

 
Displayed as a Graphic - Weather elements that are currently displayed as a graphic (contours) are indicated by a legend whose color matches that of the graphic.

 
Displayed as an Image - If a weather element is displayed as an image in the spatial editor, its corresponding legend is white in color. Only one weather element may be displayed as an image at a time. When you display a particular weather element as an image, any element previously displayed as an image will be displayed as a graphic.

 
Editable - Any time a weather element is editable, the characters "(edit)" appear immediately to the left of the legend.

In addition to its color, the legend text tells you much about the grid(s) currently displayed in the Spatial Editor. Below we list an example and explain each part.

 
(edit) - This weather element is the editable weather element. When edit operations are executed, the element is modified.

T - The weather element identifier. In this example, it refers to Temperature.

SFC Fcst - The name of the database. In this case it is the forecast database. Other choice may include: NAM, MRF, AVN, NGM, and LAPS.  For D2D grids, the name may include the level as well (e.g., 500mb).

(BOU) - WFO over which this grid is valid.
(F) - units of this weather element. In this case degress F.

1H - Number of hours this grid is valid. In this example the grid is valid for one hour.

Fri - The day of the week.

18Z 02-Jun-00 - Start time of the grid (hour (GMT), day of the month, month and year.

For persistent grids, i.e., grids that have no associated valid time, the word "Persistent" is shown in the spatial editor legend.  Although Topography is a persistent grid, it will not contain the "Persistent" label.
 

Legend Pop-up Menu

Much like the D2D display system, the GFE Spatial Editor Legends provide many option for controlling the display.   To display the pop-up menu, move the cursor over any legend and press MB3. The options available on the legend pop-up menu include appearance items, control items, and grid operations. Examples of the appearance items are changing the color table, graphic color, line width and style, setting the contour values, density, and magnification. Examples of the control items are unloading the weather element, displaying the weather element as an image or graphic, and setting the display attributes in image and graphic mode.  The grid operations are nearly identical to those options available via the MB3 popup over the Grid Manager and include items such as deleting the grid, fragmenting it, assigning values, and copy/paste operations.

More information is available on the legend pop-ups in the Button 3 Popups Reference Guide .
 

By default, the legends display information about the grids that are currently loaded. But the legends can be toggled off to remove clutter from the display. To learn how to toggle the legends, perform the next exercise. Before you begin, select a time in the Grid Manager so that a grid is visible in the Spatial Editor and make sure one of the map backgrounds is displayed.

 
The map background graphics may be toggled on and off as well.  By default, map background graphic legends are not displayed.  You can display them by pressing MB3 over the Spatial Editor display and selecting Legends->Show Map.  Note that either the Weather Element legends or the Map Background legends may be displayed at any given time, but not both.

There are several other options available when toggling the legends.  You can choose to just display the Fcst weather elements, or just the active weather element.
 

Map Background Options

Once you toggle the map legends so that they are displayed you may change the map color or unload the map via a MB3 pop-up menu.  To access these options, move the cursor over one of the map legends and press and hold MB3.  Options available include changing the graphic color, line width, style, and unloading the map background.  More information is available on the legend pop-ups in the Button 3 Popups Reference Guide .
 

Modifying the look of the Spatial editor display works very much like the AWIPS. The table below describes functions implemented by the legends (in the normal Grid display mode).

Clicking MB1 on the legend will toggle a weather element's visibility. If it was visible before the click, it will be made invisible. If the weather element was invisible it will be made visible. Note that the Spatial Editor Time must be set such that a grid's valid period must intersect it.

Purpose: To make a grid visible or invisible

If you wish to edit a grid, you must first make the grid editable. To make the grid editable, simply click MB2 over the legend. Anytime a weather element is editable, the letters "(edit)" appear immediately to the left of the legend. Note that your grid may be displayed as an image if the "Image on Edit" mode is enabled.

Purpose: To make a grid editable

You should see the letters "(edit)" appear to the left of the legend. This indicates that the weather element is now ready to edit. Note that if the displayed grid is not editable, because is locked by another user or that it is a read-only model grid, the "(edit)" string will not appear, since the GFE will not allow you edit grids in those states.

In the Grid Manager section we discussed that fact that the Grid Manager tool allows you to set the time displayed in the Spatial Editor and make grid editable. So we briefly switch back to the Grid Manager to explain how it is used to control the Spatial Editor.

Note that the grid is now visible in the Spatial Editor and is now in edit mode. Any Spatial Editor operation executed will be applied to this grid. Cases where this operation will not work include immutable weather elements such as those derived from model data and grid that are locked by another user of the forecast database.

The Spatial Editor display can be zoomed or enlarged at any time using the MB3 pop-up menu. When this menu is displayed, you are given a choice of zoom factors that represent the width of the display in kilometers. Selecting one of these choices will cause the display to zoom to that size centered wherever you pressed MB3.

Purpose: To make the larger or smaller in order to see more or less detail.

You should see the display zoom in and enlarge the size of the data and map backgrounds. Repeat the last exercise and select the highest value in the list to zoom out to full view.

A shortcut for Zooming

Another, faster way to zoom the Spatial Editor display is to press the SHIFT key on the keyboard and click MB2 to zoom in and MB1 to zoom out. Zooming in always uses the clicked point as the new center of the display.

Panning the Spatial Display

Panning the display works similarly. While holding down the SHIFT key, MB1 or MB2 drags will pan the display in the same direction, just like the D2D display. Note that if you move the cursor outside the Spatial Editor display area, the pan operation stops. To continue panning, you will need to reposition the cursor, press SHIFT, and drag MB1 or MB2 again.

The GFE includes topography as a special weather element. Topography can be displayed with any other weather element, except that it cannot be edited. To load topography into the GFE, perform the exercise below.

Purpose: To load and display topography data

You should now see an image that represents the topography over your county warning area. The image is generated from a terrain database and mapped to your office's projection and domain. While you cannot edit topography data, it can be used to identify edit areas based on elevation. We will discuss more about defining edit areas based on gridded values in the next section.