Ferret at GFDL

Ferret is a powerful data visualization and analysis tool developed by the Thermal Modeling and Analysis Project (TMAP) at NOAA/PMEL. Version 6.08 is installed on the Linux workstations and supercomputers at GFDL. On both platforms, the software resides in the directory /usr/local/bin/ferret. Type ferret to run the software.

Helpful Links:

Official Ferret Home Page

Documentation & Release Notes

Tour

Tutorials

Frequently Asked Questions

User's Group Mail Archives

Bug Reporting

When you have a question, first try searching the mail archives -- they contain thousands of questions and answers from both beginners and experienced users.

Customizing Your Ferret Environment

If you're running Ferret for the first time, it's easy to set up your environment. Just copy two files to your home directory:

    cp /usr/local/ferret/bin/ferret_paths_template 
~/.ferret_paths

      cp /usr/local/ferret/bin/my_ferret_paths_template ~/.my_ferret_paths

Then add the following to your ~/.login file:

    source ~/.ferret_paths 

      source ~/.my_ferret_paths

To facilitate future updates in the Ferret software, it's best not to modify your ~/.ferret_paths further. But feel free to add your own directories of scripts, data, color palettes, and external functions to your ~/.my_ferret_paths.

Troubleshooting

Some GFDL users have run into an issue with old environment settings when running the new version on the HPCS. The problem was traced to an obsolete file ~/.ferret_paths_ac, which was being sourced by their ~/.cshrc when opening an HPCS session. A solution is to edit the ~/.cshrc (or ~/.login) file, replacing any "source ~/.ferret_paths_ac" lines with

source ~/.ferret_paths

The ~/.ferret_paths_ac file can then be deleted, or moved to a backup directory. (The same goes for ~/.ferret_paths_686, which is also obsolete.)

To start with a clean slate, follow the instructions for Customizing Your Ferret Environment above. You may delete any other "ferret_paths" files or lines in your ~/.login or ~/.cshrc. Note that it's more efficient to "source" these ferret_paths files from your ~/.login, rather than your ~/.cshrc. The changes will appear the next time you login.

Goodies

Working with descriptor files:

Automatic descriptor generator: make_des
Descriptor dmgetter: dmget_des, uses abridge.awk

Syntax highlighters for Ferret scripts:

Vim: ferret.vim (see before and after)
Emacs: ferret.el
TextPad for Windows: ferret.syn

Miscellaneous:

Thicken lines in Ferret PostScript: ps_thicken

FAQs

Visualizing the GFDL OM3 tripolar grid with Ferret

Andrew Wittenberg -- 24 January 2008