Working on improving the Cambridge University Spaceflight landing predictor, a web-based tool for predicting the flight path and landing location of latex balloons.
The `predict/preds/` and `gfs/` directories need to have rwx access by the PHP interpreter and the `predict.py` python script. You will need to install the following python packages: pydap, numpy, json, simple-json. We use `at` to automatically background the predictor, so you will need that installed.
Other than that, just clone this repo to a non web-accessible folder and create symlinks to the `predict/` and `hourly-predictions/` directories in the repo.
The two bash scripts in the `cron/` directory should both be run daily. `clear-pydap-cache-cronjob.sh` clears the cache used by pydap so that old data does not build up. `purge-predictions-cronjob.sh` deletes scenarios and predictions not accessed or modified within the last 7 days. Re-running a prediction for a scenario will therefore reset its time to live to 7 more days.
The directory names are UUIDs comprised of an SHA1 hash of the launch parameters, and re-running predictions will overwrite data in the existing directory, rather than create a new one.
We use GFS data provided by the NOAA, accessed via NDAP and their [NOMADS](http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov) distribution system. The [1.0x1.0 degree data](http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/txt_descriptions/GFS_high_resolution_doc.shtml) (26 vertical pressure levels) is used for standard predictions, and the [0.5x0.5 degree data](http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/txt_descriptions/GFS_half_degree_doc.shtml) (47 vertical pressure levels) is used for the high definition (HD) predictions.
