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Cumulus and WxSim

Discussion and questions about Cumulus weather station software version 1. This section is the main place to get help with Cumulus 1 software developed by Steve Loft that ceased development in November 2014.
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Ruxomar
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Cumulus and WxSim

Post by Ruxomar »

Hi Steve ...

Thanks for your great job :D thanks for NOAA reports, i was wondering if cumulus could ever work with WxSim which does not at the moment and only others can ;)

The other thing is my idea to make forecast in conjunction with WxSim instead of Davis or Zambretti algorithm could it be possible ???

Thanks in advance
Ruggero
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steve
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Re: Cumulus and WxSim

Post by steve »

Ruxomar wrote:i was wondering if cumulus could ever work with WxSim which does not at the moment and only others can
I've no idea, you would have to ask the author of wxsim about that. I believe that the last time he was asked, he had no plans to add support for Cumulus.
The other thing is my idea to make forecast in conjunction with WxSim instead of Davis or Zambretti algorithm could it be possible
If you tell me how I do that, I can consider adding it.
Steve
Ruxomar
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Re: Cumulus and WxSim

Post by Ruxomar »

steve wrote:I've no idea, you would have to ask the author of wxsim about that. I believe that the last time he was asked, he had no plans to add support for Cumulus.
Since some months have gone now since i heard Thomas was in April, i asked why Cumulus was not in the list he said to me that in the beginning i did not had have time to support it but he said that he was also willing to give support if the creator of Cumulus would contact him ... strange .... but anyway worth a shot from you if you decide so .. EBurger@aol.com ...

steve wrote:If you tell me how I do that, I can consider adding it.
Well my idea was to use the Plaintext-parser.php used with saratoga bundle to parse the day or days to show with a tight description on first page and also create one with complete forecast. Something like for NOAA reports ... the one beteljuice is working on in website development.
Maybe is feasable or not but what the heck Cumulus needs better forecasting ;) Also WU could be used if ppl do not have or can afford WxSim with the same principle of WxSim ... Just a tought you the boss ;)

Regards
Ruggero
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Re: Cumulus and WxSim

Post by gemini06720 »

Ruggero, do you have WXSIM installed and running - are you using WXSIM to produce forecasts?

I have been using WXSIM for the last two years to produce forecasts that have proven to be more accurate than those produced by Environment Canada (the branch of the canadian government that manages the weather information for Canada).

WXSIM can produce accurate forecasts without the use of a weather station - in fact, WXSIM gets its data from its companion program WXSIMATE (and not from any weather station)!

WXSIMATE gathers data from numerous locations and numerous sensors such as METAR (airport surface data), buoy data (from oceans and large lakes), SYNOP (surface), RAOB (upper air data from balloon soundings), and from FOUS and MOS model (North American users only).

If a personal weather station software, such as Weather Display or WeatherLink, is available, WXSIMATE will read the information found in the log files (for WD, from the 102011lg.txt and 102011vantagelog.txt files (for September, 2011) - for WL, from the latest .wlk file) and compiled that data with to the data it has already downloaded from the external sources.

If you have WXSIM installed and running on your computer and if you look at the latest files produced by WXSIM you will find a lot of weather data, a few files in the '.cvs' format but most files in the plain text format (which can easily be read through the use of some PHP code).

A while back, I asked Tom (Thomas J. Ehrensperger) if he was going to support other weather station software (such as Cumulus for example) - part of his reply was "...I'm sure there would be at least some business to be had, but right now I have plenty of "irons in the fire" and am not looking to expand like that. I also feel a certain loyalty (though not an outright obligation) to the Weather Display community and would prefer to keep that bunch happy with WXSIM's course of development for now...".

Tom might have changed his mind since, but with school back in session, I doubt for the next few months he will be able to manage much time to the WXSIM development...
Ruxomar
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Re: Cumulus and WxSim

Post by Ruxomar »

gemini06720 wrote:Ruggero, do you have WXSIM installed and running - are you using WXSIM to produce forecasts?
Yes indeed i do ;) 14 months
gemini06720 wrote:I have been using WXSIM for the last two years to produce forecasts that have proven to be more accurate than those produced by Environment Canada (the branch of the canadian government that manages the weather information for Canada).
Dont' tell me about it .... since having WxSim and did some fine tuning myself the forecasts are much more reliable of the ones made by Italian agencies.
gemini06720 wrote:If you have WXSIM installed and running on your computer and if you look at the latest files produced by WXSIM you will find a lot of weather data, a few files in the '.cvs' format but most files in the plain text format (which can easily be read through the use of some PHP code).
This is exactly what i intended ... using plaintext-parser.php (by Ken True) , throw it on Cumulus html pages as reliable forecast to complete the all-round station software Steve created.
gemini06720 wrote:A while back, I asked Tom (Thomas J. Ehrensperger) if he was going to support other weather station software (such as Cumulus for example) - part of his reply was "...I'm sure there would be at least some business to be had, but right now I have plenty of "irons in the fire" and am not looking to expand like that. I also feel a certain loyalty (though not an outright obligation) to the Weather Display community and would prefer to keep that bunch happy with WXSIM's course of development for now...".
That was the same excuse he told me but after some e-mails he agreed that was time to make new addition and changes so maybe or maybe not however is improbable remain and we might never know :mrgreen: LOL gotten carried away ... See WD is great piece of software but very confusing at times i do have it too but only for support to WxSim, since Cumulus i never looked back, Steve have very clean design and very clever way of improving the code of it. That is why i wondered to include something like plaintext-parser adding serious forecasting to Cumulus, obviously for who has WxSim and cannot use it properly unless using the "Great Saratoga Weather all-in-one site bundle".

Regards
Ruggero
gemini06720
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Re: Cumulus and WxSim

Post by gemini06720 »

Ruggero, I am already placing the WXSIM forecast within my (modified) Cumulus pages, such as on the main [link removed] page or on my [link removed] page...

To produce the WXSIM forecasts, I have been using a modified version of Ken True's "plaintext-parser.php" script - although I have been using the script for a while, I am in the process of adding and cleaning up some of the code - the script is not yet ready for distribution.
Last edited by gemini06720 on Thu 30 May 2013 7:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
WX_Frank
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Re: Cumulus and WxSim

Post by WX_Frank »

gemini06720 wrote:Ruggero, I am already placing the WXSIM forecast within my (modified) Cumulus pages, such as on the main main page or on my WXSIM Forecast page...

To produce the WXSIM forecasts, I have been using a modified version of Ken True's "plaintext-parser.php" script - although I have been using the script for a while, I am in the process of adding and cleaning up some of the code - the script is not yet ready for distribution.
Hi Ray....I would love to try this on site if I could access and try your modified script when you're ready? :)

Right now I'm on the ordering page, and wondering which one I should get!
Need your opinion guys...it's 4 to choose from, and what's the big difference?

Thanks,
Frank.
gemini06720
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Re: Cumulus and WxSim

Post by gemini06720 »

Frank, this is a large investment, so think twice before you purchase WXSIM.

I am not trying to tell you buying WXSIM is a bad purchase, to the contrary, I have but only high praises for WXSIM.

But there might be some other priorities with (more pressing needs to) your new 'passion'...

First and foremost, you must realise/understand that WXSIM (more precisely WXSIMATE, the data gathering software) cannot use the data produced by Cumulus - for the time being, the only software from which WXSIMATE will be able to get its local weather data are Ambient's Virtual Weather Station, Weather Display and WeatherLink.

Second, if you are going to invest further, may I recommend the you purchase a dedicated 'weather' computer where the only software running would be Cumulus (and possibly WXSIM) - I have been using such a dedicated 'weather' computer, an older Intel 486 + Windows XP Pro unit to run my weather software (not Cumulus) as well as WXSIM, GRLevel3 and the FWI Calculator (all weather related software).

As to which 'type' of WXSIM you should order, it is all up to your 'pocketbook/bank accout' ... but I would suggest the WXSIM with the 'standard mode, enhanced customization' options ... you do not need the 'professional mode' as you probably will not use the few additional options ... but, with the 'enhanced customization', Tom Ehrensperger will spend many hours gathering weather data from as many sites as possible (around your location) and compile that into setup files - it will then be a matter of installing WXSIM and placing those files into the directory/folder and running WXSIMATE/WXSIM.
WX_Frank
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Re: Cumulus and WxSim

Post by WX_Frank »

gemini06720 wrote:Frank, this is a large investment, so think twice before you purchase WXSIM.

I am not trying to tell you buying WXSIM is a bad purchase, to the contrary, I have but only high praises for WXSIM.

But there might be some other priorities with (more pressing needs to) your new 'passion'...

First and foremost, you must realise/understand that WXSIM (more precisely WXSIMATE, the data gathering software) cannot use the data produced by Cumulus - for the time being, the only software from which WXSIMATE will be able to get its local weather data are Ambient's Virtual Weather Station, Weather Display and WeatherLink.

Second, if you are going to invest further, may I recommend the you purchase a dedicated 'weather' computer where the only software running would be Cumulus (and possibly WXSIM) - I have been using such a dedicated 'weather' computer, an older Intel 486 + Windows XP Pro unit to run my weather software (not Cumulus) as well as WXSIM, GRLevel3 and the FWI Calculator (all weather related software).

As to which 'type' of WXSIM you should order, it is all up to your 'pocketbook/bank accout' ... but I would suggest the WXSIM with the 'standard mode, enhanced customization' options ... you do not need the 'professional mode' as you probably will not use the few additional options ... but, with the 'enhanced customization', Tom Ehrensperger will spend many hours gathering weather data from as many sites as possible (around your location) and compile that into setup files - it will then be a matter of installing WXSIM and placing those files into the directory/folder and running WXSIMATE/WXSIM.
Thanks for the good info, Ray :)
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