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Grid Analysis and Display System |
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Download GrADS Software
GrADS is free software. Under the terms of the COPYRIGHT, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License. GrADS is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantibility or fitness for a particular purpose. The tables below contains links to the most recent releases. Be sure to download the appropriate tar file for your particular hardware and operating system.
The Latest Version of GrADS
GrADS version 2.2.1 supports both classic and Cairo graphics and introduces a new GrADS-Python Interface.
GrADS version 2.1.* are old releases that use Cairo for all
graphics rendering.
GrADS
version 2.0.* are very old releases that use the classic graphics engines.
The "source" links below contains the
source code, documentation, and the supplementary data
sets. Information on how to build GrADS 2.2 and all of its required
supplibs from source may be found
here.
The links for individual operating systems contain only a suite
of pre-compiled executables.
Please look at the Change Log for lists of new features, bug fixes, and miscellaneous changes associated with each release.
| Operating System | GrADS 2.2.0 | GrADS 2.2.1 (the latest) |
| source code | source code | |
| Linux | RHEL-6.4 CentOS-7.3 SuSE-12.1 i686 (without OpenSSL) i686 (with OpenSSL) |
CentOS-7.4 SuSE-12.1 i686 (without OpenSSL) i686 (with OpenSSL) |
| Mac OS X | darwin17.5 (OSX 10.13) | |
| Supplibs Builds (You might need to install some of these shared libraries on your local system) |
Earlier releases are available for grads-1.8, grads-1.9, grads-2.0, and grads-2.1. None of these builds are guaranteed to work on modern systems.
What Exectuable Files are in a Release?
Beginning with GrADS version 2.0.a8, there is only one fully-featured GrADS executable:
grads |
Reads GRIB (version 1 and 2), gridded binary, BUFR, GrADS station
data, NetCDF (classic and NetCDF-4), HDF4-SDS, HDF5, and OPeNDAP (grids and station data) Writes binary, NetCDF (classic and NetCDF-4), GeoTIFF, KML, Shapefiles Draws shapefiles |
The GrADS executables for version 2.0.a0 through 2.0.a7 are as follows:
| grads | Reads GRIB1, GRIB2, gridded binary, BUFR, GrADS
station data, NetCDF, HDF-SDS;
Writes gridded binary and NetCDF |
| gradsdap | Reads GRIB1, GRIB2, gridded binary, BUFR, GrADS station data, NetCDF, HDF-SDS, and OPeNDAP (aka DODS); Writes gridded binary and NetCDF |
The GrADS exectuables for versions 1.9 and earlier are as follows:
| gradsc | Reads GRIB, gridded binary, BUFR, GrADS
station data Writes GRIB |
| gradsnc | Reads GRIB, gridded binary, BUFR, GrADS
station data, NetCDF Writes GRIB, NetCDF |
| gradshdf | Reads GRIB, gridded binary, BUFR, GrADS
station data, NetCDF, HDF-SDS Writes GRIB, HDF-SDS |
| gradsdods | Reads GRIB, gridded binary, BUFR, GrADS
station data, NetCDF, OPeNDAP (fka DODS) Writes GRIB, NetCDF |
External utilities are packaged in the binary distributions for all versions of GrADS (with exceptions as noted):
| gribmap | "Maps" a GRIB data set to a GrADS descriptor file |
| gribscan | Extracts grid and variable info from a GRIB data set |
| grib2scan | Extracts grid and variable info from a GRIB2 data set (only in version 2.0+) |
| bufrscan | Reads BUFR messages and prints out ascii values (only in version 1.9+) |
| gxps | Converts GrADS metafiles to Postscript (only in version 2.0.2 and earlier) |
| gxeps | Converts GrADS metafiles to Encapsulated Postscript (only in version 2.0.2 and earlier) |
| gxtran | Displays metafiles (only in version 2.0.2 and earlier) |
| stnmap | Maps station data |
| wgrib | See the wgrib home page (only in version 2.1 and earlier) |
The MS windows versions are packaged with an install script. For the UNIX versions, you must uncompress and unpack the tar file after you've downloaded it:
gunzip <tarfile>.gz
tar xvf <tarfile>
The GrADS executables are typically placed
in /usr/local/bin/grads/. If you do not have write
permission for this directory, you can put them in a subdirectory of
your home directory (e.g. ~/bin) or anywhere else
in your path.
Supplementary Files
The font and map files are supplementary data sets that are
required in order to run GrADS. Their default location
is: /usr/local/lib/grads/. If you do not have write
permission for this directory you can place the files elsewhere, but
you must also change the environment
variable GADDIR so the GrADS executables
will know where to find these files. You can download the data files
separately by clicking here:
data2.tar.gz.
cd <dirname>
tar xvfz data2.tar.gz
setenv GADDIR <dirname>
An additional supplementary tar file contains a sample gridded data set along with an example session that reviews basic GrADS capabilities. This data set is not required to run GraDS. If you have not used GrADS before, you are strongly encouraged to obtain this file and go through the sample session. You can download it directly by clicking here: example.tar.gz.
If you are a MS Windows user, you may also want an executable of cnvgrib or wgrib2.
GrADS Metafile Viewer for Windows 95/NT
The GrADS metafile Viewer (GV) allows you to view and manipulate GrADS graphics output files using Windows 95/NT. There are two files to download: gv32.exe and gv32.hlp. (Note: GV will only work with GrADS version 2.0 or earlier.)
To view a GrADS metafile simply double click on a filename listed in the File Manager or Explorer, drag and drop the file onto GV, or use the standard Open dialog box. GV assumes that default extension of GRADS metafiles is GMF. If your file includes more than one picture you can browse through pages using the keyboard keys (PageDown and PageUp) or the toolbar buttons.
Use the View commands and the View/Options dialog box to customize the image -- display it as black-and-white or color, change the line thickness, or clip and enlarge any part of the image. Use the right mouse button to access the most commonly used features.
There are two ways to save separate pages of a GRADS metafile as Windows Metafile (WMF): 1) use the File/Save Page As command, or 2) use the Edit/Copy command to copy the current page to the Windows Clipboard and then Edit/Paste it in your favorite Windows application that handles Windows Metafiles.
Use File/Print command to print a current document to any printer (you do not need a Postscript printer). Use File/Print Preview to display the active metafile as it would appear when printed.