Install CAVE

CAVE is the Common AWIPS Visualization Environment is a desktop application that is used for rendering and analyzing data for AWIPS. The installer may require administrator priviledges to install and may require other system changes (environment variables, etc) as well.

CAVE Installers

Below are the current installers for each operating system. For more information on each OS, click on the link in the left column.

Version: 23.4.3-1

Operating System Download
Linux 64-bit Installer awips_install.sh
Windows 64-bit Installer awips-cave.msi
Mac Silicon Installer awips-cave-arm64
Mac Intel Installer awips-cave-x86_64.dmg
Virtual Machine Installer Rocky8-NSFUnidata-CAVE-23.4.3-1.tgz

View release notes

!!! note "Version 23.4.3-* of CAVE is compatible with Version 23.4.1-* EDEX and vice versa.

General System Requirements

Minimum Requirements

  • Native 64-bit operating system
  • 8GB RAM
  • 2GB of available disk
  • OpenGL 2.0 or later hardware-accelerated graphics
  • Current graphics driver
  • Network connectivity to an AWIPS EDEX Server

Recommended Requirements

  • 16GB RAM or more
  • 10GB of available disk space
  • Display resolution of 1920X1080 or higher

Functionality/Reporting

If you come across issues/bugs/missing functionality, we encourage you to report it using this short form or emailing at support-awips@unidata.ucar.edu.

Linux

Latest Version: 23.4.3-1

System Requirements

  • 64 bit Rocky/Red Hat 8
  • Bash shell environment
  • Run CAVE in an X11 session (Wayland sessions are not supported)

Download and Installation Instructions

  1. Download the following installer: awips_install.sh
  2. In a terminal, go to the download directory
  3. Make the installer an executable by running: chmod 755 awips_install.sh
  4. Run the installer: sudo ./awips_install.sh --cave
    • This will install the application in /awips2/cave/ and set the local cache to ~/caveData/

Run CAVE

To run CAVE either:

  • Use the terminal and type the command cave
  • Find the application in the Linux Desktop menu: Applications > Internet > AWIPS CAVE
  • Double click on the Desktop icon labeled "AWIPS CAVE"

Additionally users can choose to run a virtual machine (VM) on Linux.

Windows

Latest Version: 23.4.3-1

For Windows, we offer two installation options: a Direct Windows Installation, or a Linux Virtual Machine.

Method 1: Direct Windows Install

We offer CAVE installers at both the user-level (no administrative permissions needed), and the system-level (useful in a lab setting for instance). If you need the system-level installer, please fill out this brief access form for the .msi.

Download and Installation Instructions

  1. Download and install: awips-cave.msi

Note: If you are having issues with Windows blocking your installation, follow these instructions.

Run CAVE

To run CAVE, either:

  • Double click on the CAVE icon on your desktop
  • Type "cave" in the start bar and hit enter
  • Find and run CAVE app in the file browser: C:\Users\%USER%\AppData\Roaming\UCAR Unidata\AWIPS CAVE\CAVE.bat

Removing Old Versions

  1. Remove CAVE by going to the Installed Apps settings dialog. You can access this window by: Start bar > Settings > Apps > Installed Apps.

  2. Typing "remove" in the start bar should bring you to this screen as well

  3. Find AWIPS CAVE, click on it, and click Uninstall.

Method 2: Virtual Machine running Rocky8

This virtual machine can be installed on Windows or Linux.

System Requirements

  • ~30 GB of disk space
  • VMWare Workstation Pro (Free for personal use, but requires creating an account with Broadcom) For more information on how to get access click here.
  • For high definition monitors (4k), you will want to enable the high DPI setting for VMWare Workstation Pro
    1. Create a desktop shortcut for VMWare Workstation Pro
    2. Right-click the shortcut and select Properties
    3. Open the Compatibility Tab
    4. Select the "Change high DPI settings" button
    5. Check the "High DPI scaling override" checkbox and choose "Application" in the enabled dropdown VMWare Workstation Player DPI Setting

Download and Installation Instructions

  1. Download the zipped tar file containing the virtual machine: Rocky8-NSFUnidata-CAVE-23.4.3-1
  2. Untar the file
  3. Open VMWare Workstation and go to File... > Open and locate the folder that was created from the downloaded untarred file. Select the file called Rocky8-NSFUnidata-CAVE-23.4.3-1.vmx".
  4. This will open a new tab in VMWare Workstation, click "Power on this virtual machine". If it asks if it's been moved or copied, select "I Copied It".
  5. There will be a user on the Linux machine named "awips" and the password is "awips" with sudo access

Run CAVE

Once inside the VM, to run CAVE either:

  • Use the desktop icon
  • Use the terminal and type the command cave
  • Find the application in the Linux Desktop menu: Applications > Internet > AWIPS CAVE

Remove/Upgrade Existing Installation

If you do not currently have CAVE installed, please go directly to the Download and Installation Instructions.

If you already have CAVE installed you can either:

macOS

Latest Version: 23.4.3-1

System Requirements

  • macOS 12 Monterey or later
  • Intel or Apple Silicon processor

Download and Installation Instructions

  1. Download and install CAVE for your processor:

  2. Double click on the downloaded dmg and a window will open

CAVE System Install

  1. Move the Cave application somehwere locally:
    • Applications Directory to install at the System Application level -- this may require Administrator Privileges
    • Any other location (Desktop, local user's Applications directory, etc) -- this will not require Administrator Privileges

Run CAVE

To run CAVE either:

  • Use the System Menu Go > Applications > CAVE
  • Type ⌘ + Spacebar and then type "cave", the application should appear and you can hit enter to run it

The first time CAVE is opened, it will ask you if you are sure you want to run it, because it was downloaded from the internet. This is normal, and hit Open.

internet warning

Remove/Upgrade Existing Installation

If you do not currently have CAVE installed, please go directly to the Download and Installation Instructions.

If you already have CAVE installed:

  1. Remove the existing installation by locating it (it maybe be in your Applications folder), and dragging it to the trash.
  2. Clear CAVE's cache by removing caveData (see these instructions for removal).
  3. Follow the Download and Installation Instructions from below to install the newest version of CAVE.

EDEX Connection

Unidata and Jetstream2 have partnered to offer a EDEX data server in the cloud, open to the public. Select the server in the Connectivity Preferences dialog, or enter edex-cloud.unidata.ucar.edu.

EDEX in the cloud

Local Cache

After connecting to an EDEX server, you will have a local directory named caveData which contains files synced from EDEX as well as a client-side cache for data and map resources.

You can reset CAVE by removing the caveData directory and reconnecting to an EDEX server. Your local files have been removed, but if you are re-connecting to an EDEX server you have used before, the remote files will sync again to your local ~/caveData (bundles, colormaps, etc.).

  • Linux: /home/<user>/caveData/
  • Windows: C:\Users\<user>\caveData
  • Mac: Users/<user>/caveData

Uninstalling CAVE (Linux)

These are instructions to manually uninstall CAVE manually. However, the awips_install.sh script will do these steps for you if you are installing a newer version of CAVE.

1. Make sure you have exited out of any CAVE sessions

Check to make sure your /etc/yum.repos.d/awips2.repo file has enabled=1.

2. Remove currently installed CAVE

sudo yum clean all
sudo yum groupremove "AWIPS CAVE"

If you are having trouble removing a group, see the troubleshooting section.

3. Check to make sure all awips rpms have been removed

rpm -qa | grep awips2

If you still have rpms installed, remove them

sudo yum remove awips2-*

4. Remove the cave directory in /awips2 and caveData from your home directory

rm -rf /awips2/cave
rm -rf ~/caveData