4.4 fst2sig file conversion utility

The fst2sig file conversion utility is usable only for RPN Standard data files. A complete man page for the tool is available online and contains a more detailed description of the capabilities of the tool than that presented here. This converters is primarily useful in conjunction with the plotFST plotting utility also included with this package. It converts files containing locational parameters (>> and ^^ special vector fields) to self-navigating data fields which make use of the ig1 through ig4 parameters. This conversion is required for the plotting of cross-sections plotFST only.

Any file treated with this converter becomes an “old” formatted RPN datafile, so further access to the data will require the “RPN Standard 89” data file type setting in MetCal. However, since the latitude and longitude fields are not generated by the converter, extensive processing of the converted file with MetCal is not advisable.