1. If other displays and data are already loaded, select the Edit→Remove All Displays and Data menu item or the icon in the toolbar to clear them out.
2. Load some lighting data
• Open the Data Choosers.
• In the Data Chooser tree click on the Files node.
• Go to the point data directory: /data/idv/lightning/.
• Select both 201118719.ingest and 201118720.ingest
• Under the Data Source Type pulldown menu, select "Netcdf Point Data files"
• Press Add Source
3. Create the display
• In the Data Sources panel right click the lightning data source.
• Under Properties tab in the Time Binning section, change Bin Size to 5 minutes
• Click on the Spatial Subset tab. Select a region encompassing South Carolinas state and press OK.
• In the Fields panel select Point Data.
• In the Displays select Point Data Plot and press Create Display
• Select Layout Model tab
• Click on the menu and select Lightning > Bolts
• In the same menu click Edit
• Double click on the lightning layout model
• Ensure that the parameter being displayed is "sgnl", and Press OK.
• Press Create Display
4. Improving the lightning display in the Displays panel
• Disable Declutter.
• In the Times panel, select Show Multiple
• Select the button to show the Time Settings dialog
• For Start Time choose Relative to End Time, and click on button to the right of that dropdown
• In the Set Start Offset Dialog select minus (-) 20 minutes.
• For End Time choose From Animation Time, and Press OK
5. Turn on animation

Unidata IDV Workshop for version 6.3 > Accessing and Displaying Data > Point Observations