GRDREFORMAT(1)

NAME
grdreformat - Converting between different grdfile formats.

SYNOPSIS
grdreformat ingrdfile[=id[/scale/offset[/NaNvalue]]] outgrdfile[=id[/scale/offset[/NaNvalue]]]
 [ -N ] [ -Rwest/east/south/north[r] ] [ -V ]

DESCRIPTION
grdreformat reads a grdfile in one format and writes it out using another format. As an option the user may select a subset of the data to be written and to specify scaling, translation, and NaN-value.

ingrdfile
    The grdfile to be read. Append format =id code if not a standard COARDS-compliant netCDF grdfile. If =id is set (see below), you may optionally append scale and offset. These options will scale the data and then offset them with the specified amounts after reading.
    If scale and offset are supplied you may also append a value that represents 'Not-a-Number' (for floating-point grids this is unnecessary since the IEEE NaN is used; however integers need a value which means no data available.)

outgrdfile
    The grdfile to be written. Append format =id code if not a standard COARDS-compliant netCDF grdfile. If =id is set (see below), you may optionally append scale and offset. These options are particularly practical when storing the data as integers, first removing an offset and then scaling down the values. Since the scale and offset are applied in reverse order when reading, this does not affect the data values (except for round-offs).
    If scale and offset are supplied you may also append a value that represents 'Not-a-Number' (for floating-point grids this is unnecessary since the IEEE NaN is used; however integers need a value which means no data available.)

OPTIONS

-N  Suppress the writing of the GMT header structure. This is useful when you want to write a native grid to be used by grdraster. It only applies to native grids and is ignored for netCDF output.

-R  xmin, xmax, ymin, and ymax specify the Region of interest. For geographic regions, these limits correspond to west, east, south, and north and you may specify them in decimal degrees or in [+-]dd:mm[:ss.xxx][W|E|S|N] format. Append r if lower left and upper right map coordinates are given instead of wesn. The two shorthands -Rg -Rd stand for global domain (0/360 or -180/+180 in longitude respectively, with -90/+90 in latitude). For calendar time coordinates you may either give relative time (relative to the selected TIME_EPOCH and in the selected TIME_UNIT; append t to -JX|x), or absolute time of the form [date]T[clock] (append T to -JX|x). At least one of date and clock must be present; the T is always required. The date string must be of the form [-]yyyy[-mm[-dd]] (Gregorian calendar) or yyyy[-Www[-d]] (ISO week calendar), while the clock string must be of the form hh:mm:ss[.xxx]. The use of delimiters and their type and positions must be as indicated (however, input/output and plotting formats are flexible).

-V  Selects verbose mode, which will send progress reports to stderr [Default runs "silently"].

FORMAT IDENTIFIER
By default, grids will be written as floating point data stored in binary files using the netCDF format and meta-data structure. This format is conform the COARDS conventions. GMT versions prior to 4.1 produced netCDF files that did not conform to these conventions. Although these files are still supported, their use is depreciated. To write other than floating point COARDS-compliant netCDF files, append the =id suffix to the filename outgrdfile.
When reading files, grdreformat and other GMT programs will automatically recognize any type of netCDF grdfile. These can be in either COARDS-compliant or pre-4.1 format, and contain floating-point or integer data. To read other types of grdfiles, append the =id suffix to the filename ingrdfile.

id    GMT 4 netCDF standard formats
nb    GMT netCDF format (byte) (COARDS-compliant)
ns    GMT netCDF format (short) (COARDS-compliant)
ni    GMT netCDF format (integer) (COARDS-compliant)
nf    GMT netCDF format (float) (COARDS-compliant)
nd    GMT netCDF format (double) (COARDS-compliant)

id    GMT 3 netCDF legacy formats
cb    GMT netCDF format (byte) (depreciated)
cs    GMT netCDF format (short) (depreciated)
ci    GMT netCDF format (integer) (depreciated)
cf    GMT netCDF format (float) (depreciated)
cd    GMT netCDF format (double) (depreciated)

id    GMT native binary formats
bm    GMT native, C-binary format (bit-mask)
bb    GMT native, C-binary format (byte)
bs    GMT native, C-binary format (short)
bi    GMT native, C-binary format (integer)
bf    GMT native, C-binary format (float)
bd    GMT native, C-binary format (double)

id    Miscellaneous formats
rb    SUN rasterfile format (8-bit standard)
rf    GEODAS grid format GRD98 (NGDC)
sf    Golden Software Surfer format 6 (float)
sd    Golden Software Surfer format 7 (double, read-only)

GMT STANDARD NETCDF FILES
The standard format used for gdrfiles is based on netCDF and conforms to the COARDS conventions. Files written in this format can be read by numerous third-party programs and are platform-independent. Some disk-space can be saved by storing the data as bytes or shorts in stead of integers. Use the scale and offset parameters to make this work without loss of data range or significance. For more details, see Appendix B.

Multi-variable grid files
By default, GMT programs will read the first 2-dimensional grid contained in a COARDS-compliant netCDF file. Alternatively, use ingrdfile?varname (ahead of any optional suffix =id) to specify the requested variable varname. Since ? has special meaning as a wildcard, escape this meaning by placing the full filename and suffix between quotes.

3-Dimensional grids
To extract one layer or level from a 3-dimensional grid stored in a COARDS-compliant netCDF file, append both the name of the variable and the index associated with the layer (starting at zero) in the form: ingrdfile?varname[layer]. Alternatively, specify the value associated with that layer using parentheses in stead of brackets: ingridfile?varname(level). Since question marks, brackets and parentheses have special meanings on the command line, escape these meanings by placing the full filename and suffix between quotes.

NATIVE BINARY FILES
For binary native GMT files the size of the GMT grdheader block is hsize = 896 bytes, and the total size of the file is hsize + nx * ny * item_size, where item_size is the size in bytes of each element (1, 2, 4). Bit grids are stored using 4-byte integers, each holding 32 bits, so for these files the size equation is modified by using ceil (nx / 32) * 4 instead of nx. Note that these files are platform-dependent. Files written on Little Endian machines (e.g. PCs) can not be read on Big Endian machines (e.g. most workstations). For header and grid details, see Appendix B.

GRID VALUES PRECISION
Regardless of the precision of the input data, GMT programs that create gridded files will internally hold the grids in 4-byte floating point arrays. This is done to conserve memory and futhermore most if not all real data can be stored using 4-byte floating point values. Data with higher precision (i.e., double precision values) will loose that precision once GMT operates on the grid or writes out new grids. To limit loss of precision when processing data you should always consider normalizing the data prior to processing.

EXAMPLES
To extract the second layer from a 3-dimensional grid named temp from a COARDS-compliant netCDF file climate.grd:

grdreformat climate.grd?temp[1] temp.grd -V

To create a 4-byte native floating point grid from the COARDS-compliant netCDF file data.grd:

grdreformat data.grd ras_data.b4=bf -V

To make a 2-byte short integer file, scale it by 10, subtract 32000, setting NaNs to -9999, do

grdreformat values.grd shorts.i2=bs/10/-32000/-9999 -V

To create a Sun standard 8-bit rasterfile for a subset of the data file image.grd, assuming the range in image.grd is 0-1 and we need 0-255, run

grdreformat image.grd -R-60/-40/-40/-30 image.ras8=rb/255/0 -V

To convert etopo2.grd to etopo2.i2 that can be used by grdraster, try

grdreformat etopo2.grd etopo2.i2=bs -N -V

SEE ALSO
GMT(1), grdmath(1)