NetCDF Animation Creator

Create beautiful animations from NetCDF files with support for both single files and multiple files without concatenation. 75-87% faster than traditional concatenation methods.

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

pip install -e .

Basic Usage

# Interactive mode (recommended)
anc

# Single file
anc your_file.nc
# or
anc your_file.nc --variable InstantaneousRainRate --type efficient --fps 15


# Multiple files
anc *.nc
# or
anc F4C_00.2.SEG01.OUT.*.nc --variable InstantaneousRainRate --type efficient --fps 15

# Visualize using a config file (skips interactive menu)
anc *.nc --config viz.yaml
# or
anc *.nc -c example_config.json

Config file

You can store visualization parameters in a JSON or YAML file and pass it with --config / -c. The app then skips the interactive menu; CLI options override values from the file.

• JSON: supported by default (see example_config.json).
• YAML: supported if PyYAML is installed: pip install pyyaml or pip install animate-netcdf[yaml] (see example_config.yaml).

Config keys match the CLI and interactive options (e.g. variable, output_format, fps, zoom_factor, zoom_center_lat, zoom_center_lon, cmap, vmin, vmax, designer_mode, designer_show_map_contours, transparent, ignore_values). The NetCDF file or pattern is always given on the command line: anc *.nc --config viz.yaml.

✅ Key Features

• Multi-File Support: Process multiple NetCDF files directly (no concatenation needed)
• Smart Dimension Handling: Auto-detects animation dimension (time, level, etc.)
• Efficient plotting: Fast imshow with Cartopy
• Configuration Management: Interactive setup and JSON-based configuration
• Zoom Functionality: Crop domain by specified zoom factor; optionally center on a latitude/longitude

🔧 Command Line Options

🧪 Testing

# Validate setup
anc validate

# Run tests
anc test --full

🚀 Deployment

This project uses automated deployment to PyPI via GitHub Actions. To release a new version:

Automatic Deployment

1. Create a new version tag:

   python scripts/release.py patch    # for bug fixes
   python scripts/release.py minor    # for new features
   python scripts/release.py major    # for breaking changes
   

2. Manual tag creation (alternative):

   # Update version in pyproject.toml
   git add pyproject.toml
   git commit -m "Bump version to X.Y.Z"
   git tag vX.Y.Z
   git push origin main
   git push origin vX.Y.Z
   

Setup Requirements

1. PyPI API Token: Create a PyPI API token at https://pypi.org/manage/account/token/
2. GitHub Secrets: Add your PyPI token as a GitHub secret named PYPI_API_TOKEN
   • Go to your GitHub repository → Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions
   • Add new repository secret with name PYPI_API_TOKEN and your token as the value

The GitHub Actions workflow will automatically:

• Build the package when you push a version tag (e.g., v1.0.3)
• Run tests on every push to main/develop branches
• Publish to PyPI when tests pass