FAQ

 Why ODV and netCDF formats?

SeaView conducted interviews, focus groups, and a workshop asking end-user scientists what their data requests were and what formats and tools they worked with. ODV and netCDF were selected to be tractable and satisfy the largest number of users. We would like to hear about your data tools and formats of interest – please contact us [[seaviewdata.gmail.com]

What is ODV and how do I use the ODV files?

odv_logo_smallOcean Data View, is a free ocean data visualization, analysis and manipulation tool provided by Reiner Schlitzer at AWI. After downloading the ODV software from the ODV website, and the data of interest from SeaView, follow these instructions.

An ODV collection is made up of a data directory with the “.Data” extension and a launch file with the “.odv” extension.  In order to open the collection the data directory and the launch file have to have the same prefix and be in the same folder. To open the collection simply double click the .odv launch file. Alternatively, with ODV open go to “File > Open” in the menu bar and navigate to the .odv launch file.

ODV Spreadsheets are tab delimited files that have required metadata for ODV to natively load the file.  ODV spreadsheets have the extension “.txt”.  To open an ODV spreadsheet first start ODV, then go to “Import> ODV Spreadsheet” in the menu bar, and navigate to the .txt spreadsheet.

How do I use netCDF data?

In addition to downloadable netCDF files SeaView serves netCDF data through a THREDDS data server. The THREDDS server can be accessed from a number of different languages and environments including Matlab, python, and R. For more information on how to access data through the THREDDS server see our Accessing THREDDS Data page.