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Prototypes

Interactive Weather Viewer

[Made by BBC Staff]

This demovelopment takes the xml data from the 'Project Storm' system (sample here) and will generate a 5 day forecast, split by continent, country and city.
This could be used to feed (with obvious changes in layout / interface / auto settings etc.) plasma or lcd screens anywhere in the world, providing local information.
As long as the Flash can see the data file either FTPed locally, or to a web server (can be password protected), this could update whenever the data file changes.

This is really just an example to show how the data could be extracted/displayed. A smaller version of this could easily work on the a mobile device like a PocketPC, however, some recipients of the data file may want to make it smaller to then make available for a PocketPC/XDA etc. Another potential use could be to parse the data file on the server (with PHP, Perl, etc) and then actually generate the graphics directly on the server to deliver. This could be Flash (swf), Jpegs, Gifs or Pngs.

Data for this project is supplied by the Met Office via BBC Weather.

  • 06 May 2005 08:33 AM

Comments  Post a comment

  • 1.
  • On 11 May 2005 09:18 PM,
  • intradink said:

Nice. You might be able to optimise this by making use of AJAX to access/present the data.

  • 2.
  • On 13 May 2005 02:31 AM,
  • Warder said:

Your demos are amazing.

I particularly like the Newscreen. Should be on the main BBC site and optionally open a full screen window so users can have it open on background PC... providing it updates every so often with the latest data.

Excellent stuff. Keep up the good news.

  • 3.
  • On 13 May 2005 09:43 AM,
  • cy said:

Very nice app - can see a use for it in mobile devices and in the large screen plasma display scenario you mention.

One thought - there is no indication of the date or day that each forecast applies to.

  • 4.
  • On 13 May 2005 12:30 PM,
  • John said:

I like this one.

One thing to note the wind direction is counter-intuitive to me... Your arrow points to where the wind is coming from. Currently NE in Cambridge, UK but I tend to think of this more as a weather vane. Arrow points in direction wind is blowing so for a wind from the NE the arrow points SW.

Also could it show the current conditions for today rather than the forecast. Forecasts are often 'wrong' when the weather is actually happening. What I mean is the top row to show the current conditions and then 4 days of forecast - 'cos today is happening now.

  • 5.
  • On 13 May 2005 05:48 PM,
  • Damo said:

I like this one. Better than the BBC one

  • 6.
  • On 14 May 2005 05:42 PM,
  • Bev MARKS said:

This sites mentions: "The BBC does not have any weather data in machine readable format it can output as yet. We're working on it."

FYI the TPEG Forum now has a work item to develop a tpeg-weaML application.

We would like to work (mostly by e-mail) with a broadcast meteorologist on this. Given the BBC are working on something maybe we should get together ASAP! A common approach would make sense given the use of TPEG in the travel feeds.

Regarding this prototype - it is neat, but seems to assume an understanding of the existing website layout for the viewing of five days - I just mean there is no indication of the day numbers against the data display, i.e Day 1, Day 2 etc. I guess it cannot have an actual legend for the day of the week?

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