Some Panoply tips and pointers

Panoply

Panoply is a cross-platform application (runs on Linux, MacOS, Windows) to display netCDF datasets.

Panoply is free software distributed by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; the official page with documentation and download link is here : https://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/

For first timers

On Linux

If Panoply is installed (see installation tips below, if needed), all one needs to do is launch the Graphical User Interface (GUI) by launching the panoply.sh script:

./panoply.sh

Once launched, the interface opens a window showing directory contents where you can select the NetCDF file to open.

on MacOS

...TODO...

Installation tips

On Linux

Installing Panoply is very easy, once you have downloaded the tgz package, e.g. file PanoplyJ-5.10.2.tgz somewhere on your computer, e.g. in $HOME/Tools/, just untar it:

tar xvzf PanoplyJ-5.10.2.tgz

This will generate a local PanoplyJ, which contains, among other things, the panoply.sh script one needs to launch the Graphical User Interface. To be able to launch it from anywhere it is recommended to add the path containing panoply.sh to your $PATH environment variable.

On MacOS

...TODO...

Troubleshooting

If nothing happens when you launch Panoply (not even an error message of any sort), then it is likely because you don't have a Java Runtime Engine (JRE) or Java Delopment Kit (JDK) installed, or that it is not a Java 11 (or later) JRE/JDK. You must fix this first. On a Linux Ubuntu this can be resolved simply by using the package manager to install the Java Runtime Engine:

sudo apt install default-jre