Here is a quick tutorial on using curl, a program that is available for a variety of platforms, to download multiple frames from our site at one time.

To download curl, go to http://curl.haxx.se/download.html.

Basic command:

prompt> curl [options] url

[options] is a variety of option flags, but we've used '-LO' which will follow links and create an output file in the current directory with the same name as the input file.

url can specify a numeric sequence using a range of numbers between brackets. For example, suppose the files in question have the name mypicture.NNNN.tif where NNNN is a zero-padded numeric value. To get the frames from number 50 to 100, you would specify the file name in the URL as mypicture.[0050-0100].tif.

Here's a more concrete example:

Suppose we wish to download the frame sequence for animation ID 3032 at

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003000/a003032/frames/1024x512/

The frame files have the form cmealt.nnnn.tif, where nnnn are the frame numbers ranging from 0060 to 0119. In the directory where you wish to place the frames, execute the command

prompt> curl -LO "http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003000/a003032/frames/1024x512/cld_f.[0060-0119].tif"

which will step over each number in the sequence and download the specified file (if it exists).

Please exercise caution when specifying a range with non-significant leading zeroes. For example, if specifying a range in the form:
cmealt.[0060-0119].tif
fails, try
cmealt.0[060-119].tif