What is NCAR Graphics?

What is NCAR Graphics?

NCAR Graphics is comprised of:

a library containing over two dozen Fortran/C utilities for drawing contours, maps, vectors, streamlines, weather maps, surfaces, histograms, X/Y plots, annotations, and more
an ANSI/ISO standard version of GKS, with both C and FORTRAN callable entries
a math library containing a collection of C and Fortran interpolators and approximators for one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional data
applications for displaying, editing, and manipulating graphical output
map databases
hundreds of FORTRAN and C examples
demo programs
compilation scripts

What about the NCAR Command Language (NCL)?

The NCAR Command Language (NCL) is an interpreted language designed specifically for scientific data analysis and visualization. NCL has robust file input and output: it can read and write netCDF-3, netCDF-4 classic, HDF4, binary, and ASCII data, and read HDF-EOS2, GRIB1, and GRIB2. The graphics are based on NCAR Graphics.

Which package should I use?

NCAR Graphics is primarily a graphics package, with some limited data analysis through the Ngmath package. It is strictly library based, which means you need to write a Fortran or C program in order to use it.

NCL is a graphics, data analysis, and file input/output package. It is a language, so you need to write NCL scripts to use it.

If you are new to both NCAR Graphics and NCL, then we recommend that you learn NCL, as it gives you more capabilities and the graphics are easier to use.

If you have existing NCAR Graphics programs, or need some of the graphics features of NCAR Graphics that are not available in NCL (like weather maps), then we recommend you use NCAR Graphics.

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