Question on GFDL Vortex Tracker installation

[AustinConaty]

Greetings,
I went to this web page:
https://dtcenter.org/community-code/gfdl-vortex-tracker/download
and downloaded the
standalone_gfdl-vortextracker_v3.9a.tar.gz
and
test_data.tar.gz

I followed the instructions in the Users Guide here:
https://dtcenter.org/sites/default/files/community-code/gfdl/standalone_tracker_UG_v3.9a.pdf

I installed and then pointed to the Png Zlib and Jasper libraries.
I got 4 out of the 5 expected executables when I compiled but failed
to get the tracker executable itself, gettrk.exe
grb2index.exe grbindex.exe tave.exe vint.exe all compiled okay.

I don't see a lot of GFDL tracker traffic here, but anyone have a similar experience?

Thanks,
Austin Conaty

[georgemccabe]

Hi @AustinConaty, there have been a few other discussions regarding the GFDL Tracker, like #1624. The tracker is an external tool that the METplus team did not develop, so it is difficult for us to provide support. I see that the link in GFDL Tracker download page for support is broken, but I do see that the PDF mentions to send any questions to [email protected]. I would recommend sending an email there. I'm sorry that we aren't able to provide more help.

[AustinConaty]

Thank you George. I was hoping someone had stumbled with the installation like I am. I'll get it figured out.
Looking forward to running the vortex tracker so we can use the TC tools that we learned about.
Thanks for all you do!

[georgemccabe]

If you are able to use Docker, there is a Docker image available on DockerHub that I have created that has the GFDL Tracker installed. You can mount your input data to the Docker container and mount an output directory so the files can be made available on your machine.

docker run --rm -it dtcenter/metplus-envs:gfdl-tracker

The tracker executables can be found in /standalone_gfdl-vortextracker_v3.9a_gcc/trk_exec