Converting from Weather Display

[Dave.B]

Hello there,
I've been running my weather station using Weather Display for over 3 years in South Devon, but just lately I'm getting this mind-bendingly frustrating problem whereby my LaCrosse 2307 will not connect to Weather Display properly. It can be down for a few hours or a few days before connecting all of a sudden for no reason.
I've been on at them through their forum to try and find a solution, but their support is woeful to say the least. And I actually paid for that junk software.

I'm now so angry with it, that I've pretty much decided to take my site down for a week or so, build a new computer and use new software. Cumulus is looking pretty tempting at the moment.

My question is: how much work am I looking at putting in to get my Cumulus uploading to my existing site?
Can I import my existing log files and maintain my records?

Thanks
Dave

[steve]

I know very little about Weather Display. So there's no import facility - unless someone has written one and not told me! As far as getting Cumulus to upload to your existing site, it depends on what you mean by that. Cumulus has a set of 'web tags' which are placeholders for actual data; I assume WD has something similar. So if you have your own web pages and want to convert them for use with Cumulus, it may be possible to just change the web tags. But I think you may find that you won't be able to do that for all of them.

I should ask: you're not using a serial/USB adapter, are you?

[serowe]

It's possible to import WD data but NOT into the CUmulus log files (although itr wouldn't be that difficult really - whether Cumulus would actually use the data on startup Steve would have to say).

There are a couple of issues though - especially in the area of webtags. Cumulus is not as good in the web tag area - there are a fair number missing from Cumulus that are in WD (and other weather software around). So if you have used even the basic pages from WD and then convert them to Cumulus tags (I have done this for WD, FreeWx and VWS web pages) you will find you have to remove probably around 25% of the 'standard' informaiton from these pages.

The alternative to importing into Cumulus (as it doesn't have a built in historical data viewer or data browser) is to create your own history or historical database and use that for display (these pages wil show you what can be done:

http://mtb-images.dyndns.org:1088/weath ... annual.php

These pages include imported data from FreeWx, WD, VWS and Cumulus - but, again, Cumulus is not as data rich as the other software packages so there will be missing data you may have collected previously.

[Dave.B]

Thanks both for the replies...

I should ask: you're not using a serial/USB adapter, are you?

No, I noted this in the FAQs. I'm using a bog standard serial connection to a COM port.

My site is here:
http://www.kingsteignton-weather.co.uk

WD started playing ball again at about 6pm yesterday, but I'm not happy at having to go through all that rigmarole just to make it connect. The lack of webtags available in Cumulus might be a concern for me... is there a complete list available anywhere?

I'm not averse to creating some kind of scripting solution to get my old WD data converted into a format that Cumulus can read... I'll have a think about that.
Cheers
Dave

[steve]

The lack of webtags available in Cumulus might be a concern for me... is there a complete list available anywhere?

They're in the help, but also listed in the wiki, here: http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/Webtags - there are about 200 of them.

In addition, the latest version, 1.9.1, still in beta but pretty stable now, adds these: http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/BETA_webtags and this brings the current total up to 337.

[serowe]

When you installed Cumulus, in the Help directory is a fle called webtags (txt and csv versions) - this contains all the webtags available.

The main ones missing that I particularly needed deal with humidity - Max and min are missing (they only cater for the current indoor and outdoor humidity reading). They can be calculated IF you process the data, but IMHO, it's a failing.

I'm not averse to creating some kind of scripting solution to get my old WD data converted into a format that Cumulus can read... I'll have a think about that

My understanding is that this isn't an option - Cumulus can't *read* data from other programs even if you convert it to the log files Cumulus uses.

[mcrossley]

My understanding is that this isn't an option - Cumulus can't *read* data from other programs even if you convert it to the log files Cumulus uses.

Why not, if the logfiles are in the right format Cumulus will read them OK, but it will not retrospectively find max/mins etc, but you can extract these from WD and plug them into the editor in Cumulus.

[steve]

Why not, if the logfiles are in the right format Cumulus will read them OK, but it will not retrospectively find max/mins etc, but you can extract these from WD and plug them into the editor in Cumulus.

Indeed; or a conversion script could generate the file automatically. If the resulting data is in Cumulus format, then of course Cumulus will be able to read it.

[steve]

When you installed Cumulus, in the Help directory is a fle called webtags (txt and csv versions) - this contains all the webtags available.

No there isn't.

The main ones missing that I particularly needed deal with humidity - Max and min are missing (they only cater for the current indoor and outdoor humidity reading). They can be calculated IF you process the data, but IMHO, it's a failing.

In the beta, i.e. already addressed and no longer missing.

My understanding is that this isn't an option - Cumulus can't *read* data from other programs even if you convert it to the log files Cumulus uses.

See above.

[Message edited. I won't be "discussing" this further now that the facts have been corrected]

[gemini06720]

Why not, if the logfiles are in the right format Cumulus will read them OK, but it will not retrospectively find max/mins etc, but you can extract these from WD and plug them into the editor in Cumulus.

Mark, many of the Weather Display data files are in a binary format, such as the one I have attached (which represents the latest weather information as recorded a few minutes ago at 05:09 PST) ... thus the almost impossible task of designing a utility to convert the WD data files into a format that Cumulus will understand (read)

[gemini06720]

I'm not averse to creating some kind of scripting solution to get my old WD data converted into a format that Cumulus can read... I'll have a think about that.

Dave, that might be more of an adventure/experience than you would probably like to get involved with... As I indicated in a previous message, many of the data files produced by Weather Display are in a binary format - check the file found in the 'datafiles' sub-directory of WD.

Another point to remember is that WD has some 1070 webtags whereas Cumulus' has about 180 webtags - so many/most of your present weather pages will have to be either completely rewritten or discarded...

[steve]

Cumulus' has about 180 webtags

337.

many/most of your present weather pages will have to be either completely rewritten or discarded

I did ask for suggestions for new web tags when I first started work on 1.9.1, but there were very few suggestions forthcoming.

[mcrossley]

Mark, many of the Weather Display data files are in a binary format, such as the one I have attached (which represents the latest weather information as recorded a few minutes ago at 05:09 PST) ... thus the almost impossible task of designing a utility to convert the WD data files into a format that Cumulus will understand (read)

That may be case, but the original post implied that *if* they were converted Cumulus would not read them anyway, which is clearly nonsense.

[gemini06720]

Cumulus' has about 180 webtags

337.

Well, I just had a look at the Wiki Webtags page and I counted 193 webtags ... I guess that page is really outdated as it is missing a few tags...

...many/most of your present weather pages will have to be either completely rewritten or discarded...

I did ask for suggestions for new web tags when I first started work on 1.9.1, but there were very few suggestions forthcoming.

Well, Steve, I could send you the list of tags available for WD (more than 1000)...

Steve it is not just a question of adding tags to Cumulus, but to also produce files with more data, such as, for example, the 'clientraw.txt' (the almost real time data file - 166 fields), the hourly 'clientrawhour.txt' file (672 fields), the daily 'clientrawdaily.txt' file (428 fields), and the 'clientrawextra.txt' file (765 fields). I am certainly not going to ask you nor to suggest that you modify Cumulus to produce such files - that would be a lost of your time - which time you should invest in the continued development of Cumulus One...

[gemini06720]

That may be case, but the original post implied that *if* they were converted Cumulus would not read them anyway, which is clearly nonsense.

Mark, I understand that you are 'trying to cut a hair in two' by pointing out the 'if' statement.

But, someone has to design a software (and not just a scipt) that would read the data from the files and convert it to something that Cumulus can read ... and without the format of the files readily available, the conversion is almost a non fact...