Alright. So I discovered that there really isn't a service that provides customizable static radar images at a reasonable cost. So I rolled my own. See the attached images.
Features:
A) Output as high quality PNG, any quality (0-100) JPG or animated GIF
B) Add markers (up to ten and marker is customizable) based on given lat/lon coordinates
C) Choose base map color (as many options as I want to add)
D) Choose overlays (counties, city names, etc)
How it works:
1) The base maps and overlays are pre-rendered tiles stored locally
2) gen.php pulls the needed tiles (base, overlay, radar), adds the markers images and then generates the static image
Radar at the moment:
Step 1: A Nexrad III composite image is pulled every five minutes from here:
http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/data/gis/images/4326/USCOMP/Step 2: Composite image is converted to tiles and stored locally
Radar data going forward (once I have time):
Step 1: A Nexrad III composite image will be generated via GEMPAK every five minutes. Radar data pulled from Allison House.
Step 2: Composite image is converted to tiles and stored locally
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a web service that provides these images?
It would have to be a paid service (to cover server costs) but it wouldn't be expensive. I'm thinking something like $1/GB of images in 5GB blocks. No "use it or lose it" and no monthly fees. Purchase a data block and pay nothing else unless you want to purchase another block once you're out of data.
For example, the attached gen.jpg is a 720p (1280x720) JPEG at 75% quality and it's about 137KB. $5 would get you ~ 38,000 such images generated and served.
Thoughts?