Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Tracks

Storm tracks for older hurricanes and seasons are rather inferior. Unisys provides tracking maps based on the NHC "best track" data, but these are non-free. The goal of this little project is to make tracking maps that are Free.

The project
The track map generator program generates a track map from the NHC HURDAT data, or from Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecast (ATCF) B-deck data files (commonly referred to as "best track" files).

The track map generator projects the track of a tropical cyclone onto a plate carrée geographic projection. Currently, track maps utilize a shrunk version of File:Blue Marble 2002.png, although support for other background images is available in the code. (Any alternate backgrounds should be high-resolution, preferably at least 4000x2000 pixels, and should cover the entire globe).

The latest versions of the track map generator are currently hosted at GitHub, and are available here.

Prerequisites
You will need:
 * A reasonably modern C compiler and the GNU linker (the track map generator has been tested with gcc, llvm-clang, and icc)
 * The git version control software
 * The cairo graphics library
 * The pkg-config library

Optional requirements include:
 * Wget (to script best-track file downloads)
 * Automake
 * Autoconf
 * Perl

Linux systems typically provide a package manager that will simplify installation of the software mentioned above, but all of the libraries can be compiled from scratch if necessary. For example, the following command can be used to install all required dependencies on Debian: sudo apt install build-essential git libcairo2-dev pkg-config make autoconf automake gettext

The track map generator has been tested on Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, their derivatives, etc.), Windows, and macOS.

Downloading
Once the prerequisites have been installed, download the software by running the following command:

This method allows for read-only access to the WPTC track map repository. Users who desire to contribute to the development of the tool will be asked to create a GitHub account; contact Titoxd for more details.

Automatic install
If you have automake and autoconf installed, along with gettext, then the installation process can be simplified. Go to the  directory and compile the program by running

If this fails, it could be because you're missing one of the requirements (above). In particular, check that you have the development headers for the Cairo binaries, not just the binary libraries.

Manual install
Alternatively, if either automake or autoconf fail (or are not installed), use the following command while in the  directory to call the C compiler:

If you are not using the gcc compiler, replace  in the previous line with the correct compiler front-end (e.g. ,  ); check your compiler's documentation for more details.

Running
The straightforward way to generate a track is via the  program, which will create the track in the file "output.png": Temporary note: For the migration to the new colors approved in WikiProject Weather/Color RfC, please pull the latest version and recompile, or append the following arguments: so that the overall commands become:

The tool provides some runtime help; it is available by running the following command:

Uploading
Upload the output of the track generator to Commons, as public domain images. See Category:Tropical cyclone tracks to see the nomenclature being used for the track maps.

You may want to use the template while uploading; see the documentation in the linked page for more details. The ATCF parser will automagically pre-fill the upload template for you; for example, after generating the track map for Hurricane Adrian, the code will produce a template like the following:

High-resolution
High-resolution track maps are currently recommended. To build with a clear background, download the original file of "Blue Marble 2002 bg21600.png". You can move it to anywhere or rename it, when the path is correct. The script will be like the following:

./track --input ../Chanthu.dat --format atcf --res 2700 --bg ../bg21600.png --extra 1 --output ../Chanthu.png

The width is better to be set to 2,700 pixels for individual systems, and 4,000 pixels for seasons. You could use 2,700 pixels and "bg21600.png" as the default values by editing the "track.c" file from

.resolution = 1024, ... .bg = "../data/bg8192.png", to .resolution = 2700, ... .bg = "../data/bg21600.png",

and then re-install.

Current users
The following users have the track map generator working, and might take requests for map generation:

Former users

 * 1)  (no longer active)
 * 2)  (no longer active)
 * 3)  (no recent activity)
 * 4)  (no recent activity)
 * 5)  (banned)
 * 6)  (blocked)

Output
A vast amount of output is now available at Commons:Category:Tropical cyclone tracks.