Interactive Radar Analysis Software (IRAS) Home Page

The Home Page for the

Interactive Radar Analysis Software (IRAS)

Welcome to the home page for the Interactive Radar Analysis Software (IRAS) package. IRAS is an X-Windows based software tool which is used to display weather radar data. It has been used exclusively as a research tool to play back base level data from a number of research radars and most recently WSR-88D (NEXRAD).

There are two flavors of IRAS available: Sun-IRAS and Motif-IRAS. Sun-IRAS is an older version which runs under Sun OpenWindows. Motif-IRAS is the latest version which is designed to run on workstations running the Motif window manager. Since Motif is supported by most workstation vendors, it is recommended that you use Motif-IRAS. Plans are to drop support for Sun-IRAS in the near future.

The software is free of charge with no warrantee. Comments are welcome and limited support can be provided to answer questions. I would be more than happy to add new custom features if some sort of monetary support could be provided (I have to justify my time somehow). Donations to the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology Foundation (Institute of Atmospheric Sciences account) are always welcome. If you use IRAS in the course of your research I would appreciate your reference in any conference or journal papers. You can use the following reference:

Priegnitz, D.L., 1995: IRAS: Software to display and analyze WSR-88D radar

data., Eleventh International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Boston, American Meteorological Society, 197-199.

You can learn more about Motif-IRAS by browsing the online User's Guide or navigating through a sample session by via the online tutorial.