Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) images can be viewed as an animation by selecting the type of product and geographic area desired, and clicking the start button. It is advisable to view the images as thumbnails first as they are smaller and download much faster. To do this, make sure the "thumbnails only" checkbox is checked. This is the default behaviour. By default, the last six days of imagery are shown. This can be changed by using the scrollbars to set the range of dates desired, up to 30 days ago. These images may also be viewed in a non-animated format.
When you click the "start" button, the images will begin to download and the status of the download will show in the new animation window. The images will begin to show as they are downloaded, therefore the first pass through the sequence of images may be jumpy. Note that multiple animations can be started and run simultaneously, so hitting "start" repeatedly in hopes of increasing speed may have the opposite effect. Images that have been previously loaded and cached will not have to be reloaded.
Once the animation has begun, you will be able to change the animation speed using the scrollbar at the bottom of the animation window. There are also "done" and "pause" buttons supplied.
Warning: You probably never want to download the Full U.S. images in non-thumbnail. These images are approximately 4500x3000 pixels and about 13Mb each. A safety override checkbox is provided to ensure you don't do this by accident.
Scrollbars are provided to move around the images. However, they only take effect when you click the 'do scroll' button. If the non-thumbnail images are chosen, an 'image panner' window is provided to help move around the image. The image panner contains a thumbnail image of the most recent image of the series, and will have a black rectangle showing the geographic area shown in the main window. You can drag this rectangle to move through the main images. The movement and recropping take place when you release the mouse button after dragging.
If you find two dates that you would like to compare, try the comparison java applet.
Development of this applet is ongoing. If you have some constructive comments for improvement, please send them to Kirk Waters (Kirk.Waters@csc.noaa.gov).
NOAA Coastal Services Center
E-mail comments to csc.info@noaa.gov