MAGICS (The ECMWF Graphics Libraries)

The Meteorological Applications Graphics Integrated Colour System (MAGICS), developed at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is a software system for plotting contours, satellite images, wind fields, observations, symbols, streamlines, isotachs, axes, graphs, text and legends.

• Ordering forms
• Description
• Documentation
• Contact
• Current version
• Charges

Description :

Development started in 1984 with the first release for ECMWF staff in 1985. It has since been used by most Member States.

MAGICS was designed to conform to new meteorological and graphics standards, e.g. GRIB, BUFR. The ECMWF software package EMOSLIB is used to handle the processing of GRIB and BUFR data. An advanced contouring method (CONICON) is used.

Data to be plotted may be presented in various formats, i.e. GRIB code, BUFR code or in matrices. MAGICS produces PostScript, PNG, and JPEG output. An OpenGL driver is aimed at Metview usage.

MAGICS has s installed on these ECMWF Hardware Platforms/Operating Systems.

Current version :

Current version of MAGICS is 6.12 (16/10/2009)

Charges :

Each of the MAGICS licences above is included in the corresponding Metview licence.

*MAGICS uses a proprietary software library (CONICON) which ECMWF is authorised to supply. ECMWF charges an additional one-off fee for this library on behalf of the original software supplier.This fee is 3,600 GBP for a site licence (any number of machines).

Special conditions apply for developers who wish to make MAGICS and CONICON available to their customers as an embedded part of their own graphics package development. The price for a MAGICS licence in binary form, including CONICON, is 800 GBP per workstation. Details are available on request.

All prices above include handling charge.

There is no formal support mechanism for the software. Minor software updates will be supplied to all recipients at no charge until the next major upgrade. ECMWF will inform all recipients of the release of major upgrades to any of these packages and these updates can be obtained at a cost of 20% of the current catalogue price. If you decline a major upgrade, then you may obtain future major upgrades provided that at the same time you procure all previously declined major upgrades.