glider-playground 0.1.0

A fast, web-based NetCDF explorer for glider data.

Glider Playground

A fast, web-based NetCDF explorer for viewing and validating glider data. This tool provides a highly responsive UI to explore oceanographic .nc files without running computationally heavy processing steps on the fly. It was built as a simple tool to learn about glider data at NOC (National Oceanography Centre).

Prerequisites

It is highly recommended to run this project inside a Python virtual environment to keep its dependencies isolated from the rest of your system.

1. Open your terminal and navigate to the project folder.
2. Create a virtual environment named .venv:

   python -m venv .venv
   

3. Activate the virtual environment:

   source .venv/bin/activate
   

(Note: You will need to run the activation command any time you open a new terminal window to work on this project).

Installation

Ensure you have Python 3.9+ installed and your virtual environment is active. Navigate to this directory in your terminal and run:

pip install -e .

The -e flag installs the package in "editable" mode. This means any changes you make to the Python code will be immediately recognised without needing to reinstall the package.

How to Run

Once installed, you can start the application from anywhere in your terminal (as long as your virtual environment is active) by simply typing:

glider-playground

This will load up the local server and automatically open the application in your default web browser. To stop the server, return to the terminal and press Ctrl+C.

How to Use

Loading Data

.nc data files must be placed inside a local data folder. You can click the folder icon in the top navigation bar to easily open this directory on your machine. Once files are added, select your target dataset from the dropdown.

Views & Plotting

• Basic Plotting: Select your X and Y variables. You can optionally select a third variable to map to the Colour and choose a specific colourmap.
• Presets: Use the View dropdown to select some built-in oceanographic presets (e.g., Thermal Structure, Salinity Profile). You can also configure your own preferred axes and colourmaps, name them, and click Save to create Custom Views for future use.

Quality Control (QC) Filtering

If your dataset contains Argo standard _QC variables, the tool will automatically clean the plot.

• You can control exactly which data points are rendered by providing a comma-separated list of flags (the default is 1,2,5,8 to include good, probably good, and interpolated data).

Interaction & Analysis

• Zoom: Click and drag a box directly on the plot to zoom in. You can also use the interactive range sliders on the X and Y axes to precisely trim the data limits. Click the Reset Lims button at the bottom to return to the full overview.
• Data Inspector: Click a point to trigger the Inspector. This will reveal its exact values in the sude bar, and show its location on the mini-map.
• Axis Controls: Use the Invert checkbox to flip the Y-axis (useful for depth or pressure). Should automatically turn on in most cases. The Delta checkbox can be used plot the difference between variables (need same units)

Exporting

• Plot All: By default, the tool limits rendering to 259,about 250,000 points to maintain a fast, responsive UI. Tick the Plot All checkbox to bypass this limit and render every single data point for a high-resolution view.
• Download: Click the Download button in the top right to save the plot as a PNG file.

Uninstalling

If you ever wish to remove the application and its terminal command from your environment, simply run:

pip uninstall glider-playground