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wviewweather.com - home of wview

Davis Vantage Pro/Pro2 Console Controller
Vaisala WXT-510 Controller
La Crosse WS-2300/2305/2310/2315 Controller
Oregon Scientific WMR918/968 Controller
Weather Station Simulator
Weather Web Site Generator
Weather Alarm Processor/Data Feed Engine
Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP) Client
Weather Underground Client

Fast Generation • Non-GUI, Headless, Lightweight • Multi-Lingual • US or Metric Units • Extended Sensor Support • Weatherlink Archive Format • MySQL/PostgreSQL Archive • RSS Weather Feeds • Runs on the Linksys NSLU2 • Embeddable • 24x7x365 Reliability

What Is It?
wview is a collection of linux/unix daemons which interface with a supported weather station to retrieve archive records (if generated by the station) and current conditions. The stations currently supported are:

• Davis Vantage Pro/Pro2
• Vaisala WXT-510
• La Crosse WS-2300/2308/2310/2315
• Oregon Scientific WMR918/968
• Station Simulator

If the station does not generate archive records internally, wview will auto-generate archive records based on the sensor readings collected for that interval. The archive records are stored in the Davis WLK file format (thus Weatherlink-generated archive files can often be used by wview). At a configurable interval, wview will utilize the archive history and current conditions to generate weather images (buckets, dials and graphs) and HTML web pages based on user-configurable HTML templates.

Features:

• 24x7x365 reliability.
• Fast image and HTML/XML file generation.
• Non-GUI, headless, lightweight (size and resources).
• Embeddable - can be deployed on low-power embedded systems such as the Linksys NSLU2.
• Multi-Lingual - HTML/XML templates, labels and text.
• US (Imperial) or Metric Units - can be easily configured for metric or US units of measure.
• SQL Storage - archive data may be stored in a relational database (MySQL or PostGreSQL). This does not replace the use of the WLK binary files but is an export-only capability.
• Remote Upload - web pages and images can be transferred to a remote web server via an ftp or secure ssh process included with wview.
• Alarms - the wview alarm daemon wvalarmd can be enabled to deliver current conditions to TCP socket clients as a near real-time data feed engine. wvalarmd can also be configured to function as a weather data alarm generator to user specified scripts or binaries.
• CWOP - can be configured to submit data to CWOP.
• Wunderground - can be configured to submit data to Wunderground.
• WeatherForYou - can be configured to submit data to WeatherForYou.
• Awekas - can be configured to submit data to Awekas.
• RSS Feeds - processes XML template files and includes a default weather data RSS feed template.

What Do I Need?

Weather Station - one of the following:

• Vantage Pro or Vantage Pro2 Weather Station with Console
  
  • WeatherLink for Vantage Pro or Pro2, Windows, Serial or USB - the windows software is not required, but this is the only way to obtain the serial or USB data logger
• Vaisala WXT-510
• La Crosse WS-2300/2308/2310/2315
• Station Simulator (included, for demos and testing)
  

PC or Embedded Device to Host wview - this can be any platform running linux/*BSD/unix/MacOSX with an available serial or USB port and a network interface

linux/*BSD/unix/MacOSX Operating System

Standard Installations of: libz, libpng, libgd, radlib (2.6.2 or higher)

wview

libcurl (in the curl package) if you plan to submit data to the Weather Underground and/or WeatherForYou

MySQL (libmysqlclient.a) or PostgreSQL (libpq.a) client development library if you want to store archive data in a database

How do I install it?
Download the most recent tarball (wview-x.y.z.tar.gz) then extract it wherever you like by executing "tar zxvf wview-x.y.z.tar.gz". In the top-level of the distribution, consult the files wview-Quick-Start.html (or wview-Quick-Start-MacOSX.html if you have a Mac) and wview-User-Manual.html for detailed building and operational instructions.

 

 

wview Processes
wviewd - the station interface daemon. Communicates via serial/ethernet/USB interface to obtain current conditions and archive records.
htmlgend - the HTML and image generation daemon. Communicates with wviewd and reads archive records generated by wviewd to create the weather images and HTML pages.
wviewsqld - the optional SQL archiving daemon. Synchronizes an SQL table to all WLK weather data records found in /var/wview/archive. Updates the table as new archive records are generated.
wvalarmd - the alarm processing daemon. Communicates with wviewd to receive current weather data values. Listens on port 11011 for data feed socket connections, sends current weather data to socket clients, and processes user-defined alarms.
wvcwopd - the CWOP client daemon. Transmits CWOP data to an APRS server based on the configuration found in wvcwop.conf.
wvhttpd - the HTTP submission daemon. Transmits data to wunderground/weatherforyou servers based on the configuration found in wvhttp.conf.
wviewftpd - the FTP transfer daemon. Transfers image and HTML files to a remote server based on the configuration found in wviewftp.conf.
wviewsshd - the rsync/ssh transfer daemon. Transfers image and HTML files to a remote server based on the configuration found in wviewssh.conf.

wview has been successfully deployed on many OS and hardware platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OSX (Darwin), i386, ARM and PowerPC (Mac). Check out the Weather Site Directory for some example implementations of wview.

HTML Generation
wview generates images and HTML files 2 to 3 orders of magnitude more quickly than Weatherlink. wview only generates the images necessary for a given time frame. Yearly historical graphs are only updated once per day immediately after midnight. 28-day historical graphs are only updated once per hour immediately after the top of each hour. 24-hour historical graphs are updated following each new archive record:

Feb 12 23:55:04 dmzweb wviewd[7454]: <172542427> : storing record for 02/12/2005 23:55
Feb 12 23:55:04 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172542428> : Adding 5 minute sample...
Feb 12 23:55:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172548071> : Generated: 104 ms: 20 images, 6 htmls
Feb 12 23:56:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172608028> : Generated: 60 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 12 23:57:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172668028> : Generated: 59 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 12 23:58:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172728029> : Generated: 60 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 12 23:59:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172788030> : Generated: 60 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:00:05 dmzweb wviewd[7454]: <172843062> : storing record for 02/13/2005 00:00
Feb 13 00:00:05 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172843062> : Adding 5 minute sample...
Feb 13 00:00:05 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172843063> : Adding hour sample...
Feb 13 00:00:05 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172843063> : Adding day sample...
Feb 13 00:00:05 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172843086> : NOAA Generate: creating monthly NOAA reports up to 20050212
Feb 13 00:00:05 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172843087> : NOAA Generate: creating yearly NOAA reports up to 20050212
Feb 13 00:00:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172848258> : Generated: 267 ms: 38 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:01:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172908032> : Generated: 60 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:02:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <172968033> : Generated: 60 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:03:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <173028034> : Generated: 60 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:04:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <173088035> : Generated: 60 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:05:04 dmzweb wviewd[7454]: <173142427> : storing record for 02/13/2005 00:05
Feb 13 00:05:04 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <173142427> : Adding 5 minute sample...
Feb 13 00:05:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <173148080> : Generated: 104 ms: 20 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:06:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <173208026> : Generated: 59 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:07:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <173268027> : Generated: 59 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:08:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <173328028> : Generated: 59 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls
Feb 13 00:09:10 dmzweb htmlgend[7458]: <173388030> : Generated: 60 ms: 12 images, 6 htmls

Note these times were achieved on an AMD Athlon 1400.

Image Quality
Not only does wview generate images in a fraction of the time of Weatherlink, but the images are of a much higher quality and require far less disk space to store. wview also supports multiple-plot data charts for better comprehension:

wview Chart (1.8K size)


Weatherlink Chart (12K size)

Embedded Friendly
wview is easily embedded onto low horsepower, storage-constrained platforms:

• autoconf and automake are used to configure the build environment
• image generation is very fast and efficient
• image files take up much less storage space
• the distribution contains example cross compilation scripts
• wview is quite robust and stable

News

7/3/2008: 4.0.1 released - Fixed nuisance bug in FTP status logging - did not effect performance; Fixed "Rain Units are mm" message appearing during boot when imperial units are selected.

6/28/2008: 4.0.0 released - Adjusted rain rate accumulator window for the WS-2300; Add rain rate accumulator to the WMR918 station as the reported rain rate from the station is inferior; Changed default source location for ftp transfers from $prefix/var/wview to $prefix/var/wview/img so by default no "img" directory will be tacked on to the destination directory;Added tipper size support for Vantage Pro stations; The calibration solution for VP stations with non-0.1" tippers did not work because of the VP protocol inconsistencies; Now no calibration is required to support any VP tipper size; Enhanced dual unit support in charts and buckets; Added new html tags for various wind units (thanks W. Krenn); Added a new html template "parameterlist.htx" which includes every html tag displayed as "=TAG_VALUE". Can be accessed at: http:///parameterlist.htm; Modified conversion of Sea Level Pressure (SLP) to Station Pressure (SP) in wvutils; Fixed homepage templates for all skins (plus) so the !--localRadarURL-- and !--localForecastURL-- tags are used; Added the new chrome skin based on work by M. Nausch; Fixed a bug with rain and ET aggregate values for charts so that values across midnight are not displayed incorrectly.

4/20/2008: 3.9.0 released - Added new station support for the Oregon Scientific WMR918/968 stations. The WMR918/968 is selected during the "configure" step by specifying "--enable-station-wmr918". Added battery status HTML tags for the four WMR918 transmitters; Added example alarm script "outtempMaxEmail.sh" to illustrate how to use alarm scripts to send notification emails.

4/1/2008: 3.8.0 released - Added basic sensor calibration support such that a multiplier and constant are defined for each of the sensors which can be calibrated. Added a new config file "calibrate.conf" to allow configuration of the calibration. Now (for example) calibration of the rain collector type is possible: 0.01", 0.2mm, 0.1mm and others can be supported. Station pressure deviations can be calibrated. Allows ratio and/or constant calibrations; fixed input bug in vpinstall script so configuration is only done if 'y' is entered; fixed strcmp bug in alarms configuration; removed barometer trend indicator from automatic inclusion with barometer value during generation; fixed a bug in dbfStoreArchiveRecord which allowed the "dashed" value of 255 through as a valid wind reading for VP stations; fixed a bug in the station simulator so no serial fd is added to the wviewd file descriptor list; added additional console wakeup try for VP archive retrieval; changed station time sync interval from every 1 hour to every 4 hours.

3/22/2008: 3.7.3 released - Fixed "exec-prefix" bug in wview start script generation; added support for generation of NOAA reports in metric units; added support for a new "pre-generate.sh" script which, if it exists in $prefix/etc/wview, will be executed after image generation but before template generation; added to the classic/standard and classic/plus skins.

3/18/2008: 3.7.2 released - Fixed MaxWindSpeed bug in the WS-2300 interface; fixed wviewconfig bug introduced with stationType addition in 3.7.1 which omits position configuration for non-VP stations; fixed small bug in alarms error logging if the script execution fails.

3/17/2008: 3.7.1 released - Enabled NOAA generation for metric stations; fixed bug in wviewconfig which prevented non-standard database names for SQL setup; fixed start script generation to use $exec-prefix instead of $prefix for "WVIEW_INSTALL_DIR"; clarified text for "STATION_RAIN_ET_YTD_YEAR" config value to indicate the year is the year of the rain season start; added new tag !--stationType-- so the weather station type can be produced for html pages, etc. Modified wviewconfig to allow for specification of the station type. Removed "Generic" type and added "Simulator", "WXT510" and "WS-2300"; added to classic skin homepages.

3/9/2008: 3.7.0 released - Fixed missing config file blocks in htmlGenerateInit; Added transparency level values to graphics.conf and support for all graphic types (thanks to Jon Barber); Fixed bugs in endian conversion utilities (thanks to Michael Puckett and Jerry Fiddler); Added dual unit buckets (thanks to Randy Miller); Changed CWOP submission logic to only send a packet if a new archive record has been received; Changed the report interval from a hard-coded 10 minutes to be the station archive interval, with a minimum duration of 10 minutes; Added new wview.conf parameters to configure preset values for rain and ET; Added support for a "static" directory to be included in site skins - the contents of this directory will be copied to the HTML destination once when wviewhtmlconfig is run; Changed location of wview configuration and data trees from /etc/wview and /var/wview to $prefix/etc/wview and $prefix/var/wview respectively - this allows wview to be installed at any prefix specified during the configure process (--prefix=/opt/local for example); this allows wview to be installed/run in a chroot jail if so desired (or required by package management systems); enhanced example start scripts so they are populated with the proper paths for binaries and the data directory based on the configure $prefix during the build process; Added new station support for the La Crosse WS-2300 series stations: the WS-2300 is selected during the "configure" step by specifying "--enable-station-ws2300". Added rain rate computation for the WS-2300 as it does not provide it; Update DST change handling to recompute the sun rise/set etc. data when a daylight savings time event occurs.

2/23/2008: 3.6.0 released - Added new config file "graphics.conf" to define alternate graphics colors and sizes. Added support in htmlGenerate.c for these definitions (thanks to Brooks Clark). Made "graphics.conf" part of skin definitions so graphics can be customized by skin designers; added "post-generate.sh" and "images-user.conf" to skin definitions so post-generation and image customization can be defined by skin designers; updated "examples/html/Template-Skins-HOWTO.txt" to reflect changes and better describe the skin creation process; moved the destination directory for NOAA and ARC pages to ".../NOAA" and ".../Archive" respectively; fixed bug introduced in delayed CWOP submission logic of 3.5.0 release; added support for image background transparency (configured in graphics.conf); fixed missing change for the "htmlmgrReReadImageFiles" method so it no longer looks for "images-metric.conf" if a metric station (images-metric.conf is now copied to images.conf by wviewhtmlconfig based on your wviewconfig choices).

2/12/2008: 3.5.0 released - Changed CWOP generation logic so that packets are sent every 10 minutes and the transmission offset is based on the last digit/character of the APRS call sign. Also changed the default servers to all be "cwop.aprs.net" per recent requirements; Added a new HTML configuration script "wviewhtmlconfig" to simplify template setup for US/metric and standard/extended data settings. It must be run immediately after "wviewconfig". Moved old example templates to examples/html/classic/standard and /examples/html/classic/plus and added a HOWTO in examples/html for contribution of new template skins; Changed the format of the "wviewftp.conf" file so that the FTP binary and arguments can be configured there rather than hard-coded; Added config value SQLDB_FULL_SYNC to allow choice of either full sync of all archive data or partial sync from last database entry. The partial sync option should allow those with lots of data or slow links to be up and running more quickly.

12/22/2007: 3.4.1 released - Fixed make target "install-env" so the html template directory is properly created; updated new include templates to support "plus" pages more completely; modified WXT510 station interface so it does not over-write the heating configuration. Heating enable/disable must be done outside of wview.

12/17/2007: 3.4.0 released - Added new meta-tag for file inclusion: !--include filename.xxx--. Included files can themselves be generated from templates; Added new wview process, wvpmond, to monitor other wview processes and kill/restart ones which have become non-responsive (such as wvhttpd); Fixed bug in htmlgend introduced with the post-generate enhancement which caused messages sent to htmlgend to not be received until the next generation timer expiry; Moved default html templates from "examples/html" to "examples/html/classic"; Renamed the wunderground process to "wvhttpd" and added support for the weatherforyou system - wunderground and/or weatherforyou are enabled during configuration by specifying "--enable-http"; Modified the Vantage Pro station state machine to only log being in the error state one time to avoid continuous system logging.

05/28/2007: 3.3.0 released - Added DATE_FORMAT config value in htmlgen.conf to allow user-defined date format in images and tags. Formats allowed are those defined by strftime(3). Added DIAL_TEMP_FEELSLIKE_DISABLE macro to htmlGenerate.[ch] so that if the caller passes this value for the "feelsLike" argument, no apparent temperature will be drawn for the htmlGenPngDialTemperature method. Changed default CWOP servers and port numbers to match new APRS servers specified by Dave Helms. Verified 64-bit operation with radlib versions 2.7.0 and up. Added new html tags for !--windGustSpeed-- and !--windGustDirectionDegrees-- which allow access to the "current" wind gust speed and direction. Added new html tags for !--windBeaufortScale-- and !--intervalAvgBeaufortScale--. Added "Recent Avg Wind" and "Recent Beaufort Scale" rows to all the "index" templates. Added a post-generation script for the htmlgend daemon. It will be run (if found at /etc/wview/post-generate.sh) after all template files have been generated, each time they are generated.