Understand radar scan data

Question

I have an exercice consisted on:

X is a binary with raw data from the Austrian radar services.
Each radar station scans 16 vertical surfaces with a displacement of 1 km.

The file contains the reflectivity data for all locations where radar stations are available.
This is called the radar composite for Austria.

I have already codified the binary file following this:

Byte           Example                Description
0              1                      Format id (1)
1-7            31-Mar-1998 11:55      Date/Time
18-19                                 Number of rows (short int LSB first) (=NY)
20-21                                 Number of columns (=NX)
22                                    Number of 3D-levels (=L)
23-24                                 distance(m) between the 3D-levels (short int LSB first)
25                                    Number of quantisation levels (=N)
26-26+n*2-1                           quantisation levels (N * short int LSB first) in 1/10mm/h
X1-Y1                                 Pixels (NX*NY Bytes) from upper-left to down-right on the 1st 3D-Level
X2-Y2                                 Pixels (NX*NY Bytes) from upper-left to down-right on the 2nd 3D-Level
XL-YL                                 Pixels (NX*NY Bytes) from upper-left to down-right on the Lth 3D-Level

The problems asks:

Create a picture (PNG) with the highest value for each column (vertically)

Do you understand what does it ask based on the data I have? Value I assume comes from the Pixels value (which is codified in the range [1,14]) and map it into the quantisation_levels but I do not understand the question as a whole

Answer 1

I have just started looking at radar data but in a different format and implementation from yours. I have .png files but the data is only in one plane. The .png files behave like any other image file, they consist of rows and columns of pixels with different intensities. The brighter the intensity the stronger the reflection. That varies based on distance but also the type of reflecting surface.

It looks like you have a cube of data - Horizontal rows, vertical columns then multiple vertical planes. I think you need to create a new matrix containing the maximum value in each column, that matrix is then the basis of your .png file.

My visualisation is you have a cube and the .png is a new layer on top of the cube with the maximum column values.