SINALMET is a digital signage solution developed by SIMEPAR in Brazil to disseminate weather, hydrology and environmental information on large displays. It is a web-based platform that runs entirely in the browser using HTML5 and does not require dedicated hardware. It was developed to address the technical problems and high costs of their initial digital signage approach. SINALMET assimilates data from their network of weather stations, radars, lightning detectors and satellites to generate forecast and warning products for display. It provides a low-cost and scalable solution for disseminating their monitoring data.

1. A DIGITAL SIGNAGE SOLUTION FOR SEVERE
WEATHER MONITORING AND FORECASTING
Fábio Sato - Head of IT
sato@simepar.br
1
/simeparparana @simeparpr

2. ABOUT US
We are located at Curitiba in the
south of Brazil
We are a self-sustained private non-profit
organization responsible for the operation of the
meteorological and hydrological system of
Paraná state in Brazil
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3. INFRASTRUCTURE - STATIONS
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•Network of 110 automatic
stations: 43 meteorological, 51
hydrological, 16 rain gauges
•C o o p e r a t i o n / P a r t n e r s h i p
agreements with many Brazilian and
Latin American institutions for data
exchange and technical cooperation
•We receive and process online
data from more than 3,000
stations

4. INFRASTRUCTURE - RADARS
S-Band Single Polarization
Location: Teixeira Soares/PR
Start of Operation: 1997
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S-Band Dual Polarization
Location: Cascavel/PR
Start of Operation: 2014
•Two doppler S-Band
Doppler radars at Paraná
!
•Operation, calibration and
maintenance done by our
staff
!
•Integr ation and data
exchange with other
institutions in Br azil,
Paraguay and Argentina.
!

5. INFRASTRUCTURE - LIGHTNING
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•RINDAT: Br azilian
Lightning Detection
Network
•35 operational sensors
•To t a l L i g h t n i n g
n e t w o r k o n t h e
western region of PR
state
!
!

6. ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES
Development Operations
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METEOROLOGY
!
HYDROLOGY
!
REMOTE SENSING
!
AGRICULTURE
!
COMPUTER SCIENCE
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
WEATHER AND
HYDROLOGY
MONITORING AND
FORECAST
!
MAINTENANCE AND
OPERATION OF
MONITORING NETWORKS
!
IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Research

7. CUSTOMERS
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Power Companies
Oil Refineries/Plants
Hydro-Met Services
Government Agencies
Water supply
Industrial Plants
Construction
Road Concessionaries
Media

8. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
EXPERIENCE
Data Visualization
Climate and Hydrology
Data Management Systems
Weather Forecasting
and Nowcasting
Early Warning Systems

9. SINALMET
The problem we were trying to solve
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Electric power distribution
company wanted to display our
webpages and applications on
large TV displays deployed at
their operation centers
5 o p e r a t i o n c e n t e r s
geographically distributed
across the state
Each operation center had
different requirements about
information and area of interest

10. SINALMET
Our initial approach
Our webpages and applications were
not appropriate for this purpose
!
Hard to read texts and to interpret
images from distance
!
We searched for solutions and didn’t
find specific software for this scenario
TV broadcast solutions were too
expensive
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11. SINALMET
Our initial approach
We decided to buy and use a general purpose digital signage
solution and setup it to disseminate our content
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12. SINALMET
Our initial approach
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We setup 2 large displays (LED
TVs) for each operation center
!
1 display for applications and the
other for digital signage solution
client
•Small computer (Mac Mini) attached to back of the
TVs
•Computer connected to an extranet of the
customer
•Content dissemination via dedicated link between

13. INITIAL SOLUTION
Technical Problems
Digital Signage client software requires computer
reboot sometimes (manufacturers usually
recommends daily reboots)
Difficult to interact with the data visualization
applications that were not designed for distant
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interaction
Could not be used on wall screens or displays
because of corporate IT policies and security
requirements

14. INITIAL SOLUTION
It was hard to scale
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!
Every new installation required the
acquisition of dedicated displays,
computer, software licenses, local
installation
!
Deployment barriers: different
corporate IT policies
!
New installations are expensive and we
costs don’t scale down

15. INITIAL SOLUTION
Technical support was a pain.
15
!
We used VNC and SSH to remotely control
computers and software, but sometimes we
couldn’t reach the computer
!
Every new computer had to be continuously
monitored
!
Slow connections to distant control centers
!

16. SINALMET
Should we develop our own solution for this?
Avoid "not invented here syndrome”: we did new research but we still were not happy with
the solutions we found
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!
We believed that it would be possible to develop a HTML based system for a "Weather Digital
Signage" solution
!
We developed a prototype in less than 3 weeks
!
The HTML-based prototype was able to provide better functionality than our original
approach.
!
We decided that it was worth to develop it

17. SINALMET
!
What is SINALMET?
It is a digital platform for the dissemination on large displays of weather,
hydrology and environmental information
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It runs entirely on the web browser
!
It uses new technologies available on HTML5
and CSS3 compatible web browsers
!
It is scalable and low cost
!
It doesn’t require dedicated hardware: use
existing computer and low-cost solutions like
Chromecast
!
It can comply with corporate IT policies
!
It requires almost zero tech support

18. SINALMET
How did we developed it?
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!
HTML5 + CSS + JS
Web formats: XML and JSON
!
OGC web standards: WMS and WFS
!
PostgreSQL + PostGIS
Unidata THREDDS
!
Geoserver and Mapserver
!
RESTFul APIs: systems integration
!
Javascript-based data visualization libraries
!

19. SINALMET - RADAR
Assimilates raw volume and product files
Generates basic radar products: PPI, CAPPI and mosaics/composites
Integration with lightning data
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20. SINALMET - LIGHTNING
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!
Displays data from a Vaisala lightning processing central
by connecting to a live UALF feed over Internet for realtime lightning data access

21. SINALMET- SATELLITE
Displays infrared channels of GOES or METEOSAT satellites
Radar and lightning can be overlaid to highlight storm cells
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22. SINALMET - FORECAST
Presentation of forecast data available in XML or JSON formats
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23. SINALMET - STATIONS
Automatic assimilation and interpolation of weathers stations data
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24. SINALMET - WARNING
Dissemination of Early Warnings
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25. SINALMET - DEMO
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26. SINALMET - ROADMAP
So, what’s next?
Mobile support (smartphones and tablets)
Packaging for smart TVs stores
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!
Integration with nowcast systems, e.g.: TITAN, lightning
storm tracking, and satellite based algorithms
!
Dissemination of CAP (Common Alerting Protocol)
messages
!
Social media: filter and display relevant information
with natural language and machine learning
algorithms
!

27. SINALMET
QUESTIONS
Visit www.simepar.br/portfolio for more information
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