Description (optional)
A common barrier to entry for new MPAS users is visualization of the native, unstructured grid output. There is no official plotting utility provided for users that allows visualization of arbitrary MPAS grids “out-of-the-box”; while some older ncl scripts exist, this scripting language is long deprecated.UXarray (https://github.com/UXARRAY/uxarray) is a python package created by NSF-funded Project Raijin, developed specifically for handling, manipulating, and plotting data on unstructured grids, with emphasis on data following the UGRID standard (which MPAS utilizes). This project offers a large number of interactive demonstrations for plotting MPAS data using Holoviz in browser-based Jupiter Notebooks, but not many resources are available for users who need command-line plotting capabilities: for example, bulk creation of graphics files, and visualization on HPC platforms where browser-based visualization is difficult or restricted.
Making use of UXarray’s natively supported integration with MatPlotLib, we demonstrate a command-line plotting script to be an easy first stop for visualizing output of the native MPAS netCDF output on an unstructured grid, and bulk creation of high-quality graphics. A YAML-based configuration file allows for easy customization of these graphics based on user input and the contents of the netCDF output. This utility is available on Github at https://github.com/dtcenter/mpas_plot.
| Period | Jun 4 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Joint MPAS/WRF Users Workshop 2025 |
| Event type | Colloquium |