Provides classes for reading and writing earth data in a variety of formats.

The basis of all earth data reading functionality in the software is the {@link noaa.coastwatch.io.EarthDataReader} class and subclasses. The reader classes provide generic methods for reading metadata and data variables one at a time from HDF, NetCDF, and NOAA 1b files. To open a new file of unknown format, use the {@link noaa.coastwatch.io.EarthDataReaderFactory}, which attempts to guess the file format and provide an EarthDataReader object.

The reader classes can be grouped by format and capabilities as follows:

Reader Classes
Class Metadata Earth Tranform Data Buffering
NetCDF 3/4 Format (NCReader subclasses)
CommonDataModelNCReader CF-1.4 Grid mapped projections supported by the Java NetCDF library, also lat/lon projections with explicitly specified points. Per-variable tile caching
CWNCReader CoastWatch HDF 3.4 Map projection only None
CWCFNCReader CF-1.4 with CoastWatch extensions Map projection only None
HDF 4 Format (HDFReader subclasses)
CWHDFReader CoastWatch HDF 3.4 Map projection (GCTP), satellite swath, ellipsoid perspective Per-variable tile caching
TSHDFReader TDF Map projection (equirect, polar stereo, Mercator), satellite swath Per-variable tile caching
NOAA 1b AVHRR (NOAA1bReader subclasses)
NOAA1bV1Reader, NOAA1bV2Reader, NOAA1bV3Reader, NOAA1bV4Reader, NOAA1bV5Reader NOAA 1b-specific Satellite swath (AVHRR LAC and GAC) Per-variable scan line caching
NOAA 1b Non-AVHRR
NOAA1bFileReader NOAA 1b-specific Satellite swath (AMSU-A, AMSU-B, HIRS4, MHS) Per-variable scan line caching

The writer classes, subclasses of {@link noaa.coastwatch.io.EarthDataWriter}, support the creation of many different output file formats. In particular, the {@link noaa.coastwatch.io.BinaryWriter} classes write data variables as a stream of binary data values, the {@link noaa.coastwatch.io.TextWriter} class handles the writing of ASCII text files, and the {@link noaa.coastwatch.io.CWHDFWriter} writes CoastWatch HDF format.