GOP-TropDB browser application

The application displays a set of stations from the GOP-TropDB, their metadata and comparison statistics. The side menu enables to select data sources and stations and display them in two principle ways:

Besides, configurable metadata, data or statistics can be visualized also in time series or via a geographical Map animation.

Basic concept

Control panel

The Control panel on the right side provides means for controlling the application. Its various buttons access application's functions (e.g. time series chart), configuration menus, or link to additional pages. The buttons of the Control panel, from top to down are:

Not all buttoms are necessarily present, which depends on background functionality configurations.

Station and source selection

Stations are selected (deselected) with the left-hand mouse button clicking (double clicking) on the marker or row in the Main view. The selection is indicated by thick border(s) around the markers in the Map view, and by gray background of row(s) in the Table view.

In Table view, individual sources for each station are listed in separate lines, they can be thus selected easily one by one. However, in case of more sources for the same station, only the first top source is visible on the Map view which is selected with a simple clicking on the visible marker. If user wants to select all the sources for the same station, the clicking requires a simultaneous press of CTRL button.

The Selected stations are also listed in Chart settings menu (see img. 3) where the associated trash button can be used to remove individual stations/source from the selection. To clean up all the selections, the cross button at the Control panel can be clicked.

Parameter selection

The stations have two sets of parameters: static and dynamic.

The Static parameters are used in a static geographical display for time-independent value (e.g. overall statistics) or in the Chart plot for displaying times series for selected parameters and stations only.

The Dynamic parameters are used in the Map animation) only. It provides a progressive colour change of station markers in the geographical display when reflecting tim changes in the single selected parameter. Note: the animation and the use of dynamic parameters are very time consuming.

Data ranges for all the parameters (static and dynamic) can be set by user in the Parameter range settings of the Control panel.

Map view

The Map View shows a world map with stations signified with circle shaped markers. The markers are colour coded according to selected station parameter (by linearly interpolating assigned colour range). A legend on the left side of map shows the maximum colour range.

The colour-determining parameter can be selected in the Station Colours menu (see img. 1) opened via the control panel's button Station Colours. The selected stations are differentiated by border colour.

station colours menu example
Img. 1 - Station Colours menu

Animation

In the case of the Map animation the stations markers change colour over time to show changes of selected parameter. Animation is possible only when a dynamic parameter is selected as colouring parameter.

Animation has simple controls: play, pause, reset buttons and a slider indicating current time (see img. 2). The slider can be used to jump to specific time (either dragging or clicking on the slider works). These controls can be toggled via animation controls button on the Control Panel.

animation controls
Img. 2 - Animation Controls

Table view

The Table view displays either station metadata or station static parameters in tabular form. The data can be ordered by any column, simply click on a column header (e.g. LAT) to sort table by this column. The sort order can be set in table menu.

The menu above the table allows to:

NOTE: keep in mind that selecting all stations can cause performance issues with time series chart.

Chart plot (time series)

Parameters from one or more stations can be plotted as a time series. The time series chart is activated by Show Plot button in Control Panel.

chart settings
Img. 3 - Plot settings menu

The Chart plot can be customized in the Plot settings menu (see img. 3). User can select individual (even more) parameters, turn on x-axis time navigator, turn on the averaging (optimally when using single stations only), and possibly remove individual station/source from the selection.

The chart can show parameters individually for the stations or it can calculate and plot an average of any single parameter over all selected stations. The average is calculated from as many selected stations as possible. However, because data may be unavailable for some data points the actual number of stations used for average calculation may differ across the chart. The series' tooltip shows the number of stations used for the calculation for any given point.