The Slide Viewer

The built in slide viewer is a handy way of looking at a few satellite pictures either before you save them or just to have a look and then discard.

There are basically two main modes of operation which are:

Direct mode, where the form is loaded and you select the pictures
- Browse for files
- Use the task lists to locate files
Download mode, where the Manual File Getter is used to select the files.

Direct Mode

To run the viewer directly just select ‘Start Slide Viewer’ from the menu after you right click the MetSatGetter icon in the system tray.

(You can now expand this to full screen if you wish.)

Browse For Files

In order to find files on your hard drive(s) to display in the browser, you should click on the ‘Browse Images’ button on the toolbar.

If you are manually selecting then, if it is EUMETSAT files, you may find it easier to select by clicking on the view menu:

and changing it to 'details'

Click on Name

to reverse the order, and then select the files. It does not matter that they are in the wrong order as the program will sort them.

The number of images, and the current image, and the slide timing are displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.

Obviously we designed this viewer with satellite images in mind, but you could actually use it to view your family snaps as well!

There should be no problems with memory for EUMETSAT images (except perhaps Visualised products in full resolution) as only 1 picture is loaded at a time and thus you can run as fast as 0.1 seconds between frames. The viewer is just reading off a list.

If however the family pictures is what you are viewing you may see this message if the timing is less than 1 second for each slide.

If you click ‘Yes’ the timer will be re-set and you can use them as a slide show. We have tried it on intervals of less than 1 second and it does cause problems for the timer, which then gets confused as to which picture it is supposed to be showing. If you click ‘No’ then the timer will remain set as it is but you will have to ‘click through’ the slides yourself using the forward and back buttons.

Note that because I answered no to resetting the timer, the ‘Start Show’ button is greyed out.

Bear in mind that if the timer is re-set it will be re-set for the satellite images as well. If viewing family snaps, 1 per second is actually too fast. Two or three seconds is better.

(The flowers are Crocosmia Lucifer if you are interested.)

Clicking ‘Options’ takes you to the setup form:

These are pretty much self explanatory!

Download Mode

To download satellite files and display them in the viewer you have to start off in the Manual File Getter.

As the images download you will see them in the message area which is at the bottom of the form (Says Ready in the shot above)

Click the Manual Downloads button below for further details.