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Asher Pembroke

Publications and source records attributed to Asher Pembroke.

Kamodo: Simplifying Model Data Access and Utilization

To address the lack of user-friendly software needed to simplify the utilization of model data across Heliophysics, the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has developed a model-agnostic method via Kamodo for users to easily access and utilize model data in their workflows. By abstracting away the broad range of file formats and the intricacies of interpolation on specialized grids, this approach significantly lowers the barrier to model data access and utilization for the community while adding exciting new capabilities to their tool boxes. This paper describes the direct interfaces to the model data, called model readers, and a basic introduction on how to use them. Additionally, we detail the planned approach for including custom interpolation codes, and include current progress on specialized visualization developments. The CCMC is maintaining Kamodo as an official NASA open-sourced software to enable and encourage community collaboration.

Heliophysics

Kamodo’s Model-Agnostic Satellite Flythrough: Lowering the Utilization Barrier for Heliophysics Model Outputs

Heliophysics model outputs are increasingly accessible, but typically are not usable by the majority of the community unless directly collaborating with the relevant model developers. Prohibitive factors include complex file output formats, cryptic metadata, unspecified and often customized coordinate systems, and non-linear coordinate grids. Some pockets of progress exist, giving interfaces to various simulation outputs, but only for a small set of outputs and typically not with open-source, freely available packages. Additionally, the increasing array of tools built upon these sporadic interfaces are typically model-specific. We present Kamodo’s model-agnostic satellite flythrough capabilities as the solution to the utilization barrier for heliophysics model outputs. Developed at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center, these flythrough capabilities are built in Python upon a network of model-agnostic interfaces developed in collaboration with model developers, providing interpolation results the community can trust. Kamodo’s flythrough capabilities present the user with a growing variety of flythrough tools based upon a rapidly expanding library of heliophysics model outputs in several domains, currently including a variety of Ionosphere-Thermosphere-Mesosphere and global magnetosphere model outputs. Each capability is designed to be easily accessible via simplistic model-agnostic syntax, with the entire package freely available in the cloud on Github. Here, we describe the tools developed, include several sample applications for common science questions, demonstrate interoperability with selected packages, and summarize ongoing developments.

Software

The Satellite Flythrough and Reconstruction Softwares at CCMC

The next-generation of model data visualization to be offered at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) will be based on Kamodo, an open source python package. To increase the usefulness of our services, we are also developing new capabilities based on this software, called the satellite flythrough and the reconstruction tools, to be offered both as packages for offline analysis and through an online interface (coming soon). The satellite flythrough software ‘flies’ a satellite trajectory, whether real or imaginary, through either model data hosted at CCMC or on a personal machine. This service greatly simplifies the complexity of users’ access to model data, abstracting away the time-consuming details of model data formats and interpolation. We demonstrate execution times of a few seconds to a few minutes for several example flythroughs of a trajectory stretching over a few days, depending on the parameters chosen. We also demonstrate a reconstruction tool built on top of the satellite flythrough software, for use with mission planning and model-data comparisons. This tool, based on reconstructions provided for the GDC Science and Technology Definition Team, converts multiple, simultaneous satellite flythroughs into two-dimensional reconstructions. The reconstruction tool provides a software capability for satellite constellations to determine how many satellites are needed and in what configuration to resolve the desired features in the model data. Both tools are currently available through GitHub for a selection of CCMC-hosted ITM models. Finally, we present initial results from work in progress and plans for future work, including an expansion of the reconstruction tool to provide 3D reconstruction capabilities and a line-of-sight calculation tool.

software, python