Regional Atmospheric Soaring Predictions - RASP Server Startup Wiki
This thread is about sparking interest in creating Blimpmaps, RASP, WingGrams and the like in regions like yours. - Nearly mandatory for regions that become well known for hosting top level XC Events up to and including FAI Category 1 Championships; - And our FAI Olympics: the World Air Games.
READ:
- RASP Quick Start Focus Area Thread on hanggliding.org
- RASP BlipMaps - for futher Information;
- RASP Creation - information for those interested in running RASP for their own region;
- RASP Forum - comments and discussion by RASP user/operators.
See in particular the two + RASP Forum threads on:
1. The OpenMeteoData project;
2. Installation on 16 physical core/60GB EC2 inst; and
3. Cooperative ventures to Upgrade Dr. Jack's 32 bit architecture to the new 64 bit world at: http://www.drjack.info/cgi-bin/rasp-forum.cgi
The Best Quick Tips Wiki you will ever read:
Quoting Alan: I've been running the Southern California RASP Model for a couple of years.
The 64-bit version of Dr Jack's RASP Software is pretty common. I'm running that myself. Canadian prices may be a bit higher, but $2,000 would be a pretty big premium. If I bought new it would have been about $1000 and twice as fast (I7 processors have gotten quicker.)
I'm covering more than half of California (163,700 total sq miles) on my older I7. (Purchased circa 2010. $450 off Craig's List and the CUDA card was $40.)
If you purchase a newer machine it will be twice as fast so a model of similar proportions certainly sounds feasible.
I should have added that if you only need a model for the comp duration, the EC2 implementation would be a really good option.
The 2.5km grid is fine. We're really using RASP to reduce a 12km grid to 4km or 1.5km. Once you get below a 1km grid there is too much noise to be all that useful. Comps cover a lot of ground and a really tight grid is not needed.
TJ has the scripts to go straight to a plot (or re-plot an existing run). If you have 2.5km data available you can save 95% of the processing time and go straight to the plots. End Quoting Alan
BUILDING A RASP SERVER
Quoting Alan You could build the RASP model on almost anything. (I built my first one on a virtual machine on a dual-core XP machine. The VM was Linux.), then port the finished model to the cloud and throw processors at it for super-fast processing.
Some of the Europeans are doing that for their on-going processing as power costs make it a reasonable choice. Pretty inexpensive if only needed for a limited duration.
End Quoting Alan
TJ Olney wrote re RASP Servers: As to Machine Capabilities and Purchase Prices See: http://www.portatech.com/products/category.cshtml?id=1239
If I were buying a new machine, I would buy the third from the top with a "speed rating" of 11980 i7 6 cores at 3.8ghz If I were using other people's money, I'd buy the one on the top.
Look only at intel processors, as they are fully supported by the fast intel compilers that we can use for free and are often used by people compiling the underlying weather model programs.
--Fred Wilson 14:18, 7 March 2013 (UTC)