Satellite Imagery Site Ratings

...a part of the International Weather Satellite Images.


I plan in the future to have ratings in stars(0-5) for each group of satellite images to help people who are overwhelmed by the number of images. I have started work on the ratings system, but it has been postponed indefinitely since I have decided that descriptions would be more useful. These ratings are a few years out of date (I think they are from sometime in 1996).

The Ratings

Name Usability Regions Resolu- tion Types Presen- tation Updating Archiving Status Access Total Stars
Range 0 to 20 0 to 20 0 to 15 0 to 15 0 to 10 -10 to 10 0 to 20 -5 to 5 -5 to 5 -20 to 120 0 to 5
SSEC Global Composite 175332-1144451 ***
SSEC Global Montage 75231-1005417 *
WSI Intellicast Full Earth 165038-703-325 *
WSI Intellicast Regional 1812638-203-345 **
SSEC Antarctica Composite 165834-303440 **
Satellite Active Archive 31012660205365 ****
DMSP Polar Imagery 8101086-10194156 ***
NASA/ARC GOES Images 57141288122169 ****
NASA/GSFC GOES Images 1018151258123-579 ****
Colorado State 1816141266184498 *****
Ohio State University 198131373123383 ****
Purdue WXP 1988126553270 ****
UIUC Weather World 1917141195123-591 *****
University of Utah 188141156142381 ****
University of Wyoming
Oklahoma Climatological Survey
SSEC North America
Florida State University
METEOSAT FAX North America
Louisiana State University
SSEC IR/Radar Composite
American Polar Images Yet to be Rated
University of Nottingham Meteosat FAX Images
Meteo-France Meteosat Images
Edinburgh Meteosat Images
European Polar Images Yet to be Rated
NASA Raw GMS Images
James Cook University GMS Images
Asian Polar Images Yet to be Rated

About the Ratings

When I rate the image groups, I think about the following questions and guidelines for each category:

Usability (0 to 20)
Is it easy to see what is occuring in the image? Are there map lines to help? Does having only strong clouds only appear interfere with the image severely? A raw image is worth 5 points. Be careful not to account for resolution unless very low resolution interferes with usability.
Regions (0 to 20)
Is there a good selection of regions to choose from, or must one retrieve the entire image to see one part? Are there high resolution *and* low resolution versions? Are different areas available? Are there zoomed images of specific regions? Are there floater images? An image covering only one, well selected area merits 5 points.
Top Resolution (0 to 15)
Does the highest resolution available show good detail? Does being low resolution hurt the image quality, especially in a Mercator Projection?
Image Types (0 to 15)
Are there many types of images are available -- Visible, Infrared (how many channels?), Water Vapor. Are both normal and enhanced infrared available?
Point guidelines:
Visual Presentation (0 to 10)
Does the image look nice? An image good enough to appear on television should generally get above 5 points. Poorly drawn lettering or other such problems hurt in this category. Be careful not to account for usability.
Updating (-10 to 10)
Are the images up to date? Are they updated frequently? Guideline: updating every 3 hours with 1 hour delay is worth 0 points.
Archiving (0 to 20)
The type of archive is on the following scale: How easy is the archive to access? - This can modify the score
Status Information (-5 to 5)
If one cannot determine the time that the image was taken in any way, rating is -5. Otherwise, on a 0-5 scale, is the status information given on the image, in the filename, or elsewhere good. Is it easy to understand? Is it easily accessable?
Access (-5 to 5)
Are the images stored in a good file format? Are they easy to access at the site (no special filename for the latest image hurts)? Is the site quick and reliable?

Total to Stars Conversion (tentative)

TotalStars
90+*****
65-89****
47-64***
27-46**
-26*

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LDB, dbaron@dbaron.org