Welcome to the NCL website!
To help you get familiar with how things are laid out, here's a description of the main areas of the website, which are represented by the above yellow navigation bar, and to a lesser extent, the left navigation bar, both of which appear on every page in this website.Top yellow navigation bar
- Application examples
- This is basically a duplication of the old CESM graphics examples
page, which was housed at:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/csm/support/CSM_Graphics/index_bycat.shtml
(This link is no longer valid.)
It contains hundreds of downloadable example NCL scripts, and is organized by major and minor categories. You can also select an alphabetical ordering of the minor categories.
- Documentation
- Graphics - includes links
to all of the gsn_xxxx
function documentation, all of the plot resources, and
supplemental information like color tables,
dash patterns, marker styles, and
font tables.
- Functions -
includes links to all of the NCL function documentation including built-in functions
(like addfile, dimsizes, doubletofloat, etc.), gsn_xxxx
functions, and functions from the "contributed.ncl"
and "shea_util.ncl"
scripts.
The main function page contains listings by category, but you can also access them alphabetically and by type (built-in, gsn, contributed, and shea_util).
- Language -
includes information on NCL language basics, like how to reorder
arrays, how to use logical expressions, how missing values works, what
coordinate variables are, and how to subscript arrays. For full
documentation of NCL's language, we recommend the NCL Reference Manual which is
part of the next section.
- Manuals - includes the "Getting Started Using
NCL" guide, the NCL
Reference Manual, and some PDF "mini" manuals which serve as
excellent quick reference guides to NCL syntax and graphical
capabilities.
- Glossary - a
glossary of both NCL and HLU terms.
- HLUs - documentation
for the High Level Utilities (HLUs), which is a C/Fortran
interface to the same visualizations that NCL is based upon.
- PyNGL - a Python
interface to NCL's graphics library.
- PyNIO - a Python interface to NCL's file input/output capabilities.
- Support
- Graphics - includes links
to all of the gsn_xxxx
function documentation, all of the plot resources, and
supplemental information like color tables,
dash patterns, marker styles, and
font tables.
- This contains information about the NCL email lists, workshops, and who to contact for
website issues.
- Training
- This contains detailed information about the workshops, including
graphical exercises and powerpoint presentations.
- Download
- Information on where and how to download and install NCL.
Left "firebrick" navigation bar
- Overview - an overview of NCL.
- Getting Started - where to go
if you are new to using NCL.
- Gallery - a gallery of
visualizations you can create with NCL. This section links into the application example pages.
- Email lists -
information on NCL email lists and links to their archives.
- What's new - what's new in
the latest and previous versions of NCL.
- Popular links - a list of links
useful for all levels of NCL users.
- FAQ - Frequently asked questions.
- Known bugs - a list of known
NCL bugs and their current status.
- About this website - this page