Suitability of Unidata Metapps for Incorporation in Platform-Independent User-Customized Aviation Weather Products Generation Software

Abstract

Due to multiple factors, including an increase in military operations tempo and the improved resolution of meteorological models, demand for access to customized aviation weather products has increased exponentially. This has given rise to a need for a multi-purpose interactive aviation weather product generation software solution. This software solution must be platform-independent, multiple data source access configurable, robust, extensible or upgradeable, user-friendly, and an improvement over current visualization applications used in the operational military aviation weather community. This thesis determines whether Unidata MetApps meets these criteria. A software reuse and component-based engineering approach was taken in this thesis. Two experimental applications were constructed using a software design approach resembling the Facade software design pattern. The first application used existing MetApps stand-alone prototype applications, while the second exploited capabilities of the MetApps component library. Both experimental applications were measured against the above set of criteria to determine their suitability for incorporation in platform-independent user-customized aviation weather products generation software. The results prove that a Facade software design approach can be effectively used to build applications. It was determined however that, even though MetApps shows promise, it may not be suitable for incorporation into an operational application.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 08, 2002
Accession Number
ADA404202

Entities

People

  • Harmen P. Visser

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Data Visualization
  • Graphical User Interface
  • Human Systems Integration
  • Human-Machine Interaction
  • Military Aviation
  • Military Operations
  • Operating Systems
  • Programming Languages
  • Software Design
  • Software Development
  • Three Dimensional
  • Weather Forecasting
  • Web Browsers

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science/Meteorology
  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Software Engineering.