> I have yet to see a standard for bulk binary data transport
> that is significantly better than FITS. Hence the wrapping
There's a BinX format floating about from (I think) the grid world - and Guy told me about some DFDL (pronounced 'daffodil' apparently) which is a way of allowing xml-based tools to read binary format data. I don't know much more about it.
Cheers,
Tony.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-votable-at-eso.org [mailto:owner-votable-at-eso.org] On
> Behalf Of Arnold Rots
> Sent: 14 April 2004 14:34
> To: VOTable mailing list
> Subject: Re: Comments on V1.1 - Future of VOTable
>
> Now that this side of the Atlantic has woken up and surveyed
> (bleary-eyed) the wisdom that has been dispensed from the
> other side while we were blissfully asleep, we might a well
> join in :-)
>
> I'll repeat my old mantra (slightly disagreeing with what Clive said
> earlier): FITS defined the syntax of the metadata but failed
> to define the semantics - and that's turned out to have been
> a considerable problem. HEASARC/OGIP tried to fix that with
> a set of conventions, but such efforts were very much limited
> to sub-communities: high energy, optical, and radio each have
> their own set of idiosyncratic conventions; and that's
> troublesome for a VO.
>
> To expand on the reversibility that Mark quoted:
> So, defining an XML-based metadata standard that is purposely
> semantic in nature is a very sensible thing to do and XML is
> well-suited for that (better than FITS). On the other hand,
> I have yet to see a standard for bulk binary data transport
> that is significantly better than FITS. Hence the wrapping
> concept - which I think is actually a very sensible, but also
> accpetable, way of transporting data and information.
> Extract the metadata from the FITS headers (requiring
> software that understands the peculiar dialect of a
> particular FITS file), put it in a universally understandable
> XML document (for the sake of argument, let's say a VOTable),
> and send it with the FITS file containing the data - that
> seems like a perfectly acceptable and practical solution (at
> least to me).
>
> And, of course, if you can translate a FITS dialect to a
> VOTable, you can try to do the reverse and feed the new file
> into your existing FITS-based analysis package - or you can
> use something more modern.
>
> In summary:
> - The data transport mechanism of FITS ain't broken -> don't fix it.
> - The metadata semantics in FITS is a problem -> replace it
> by something better (VOTable or whatever).
>
> Anyway, that's the assumption I have been working from.
> Cheers,
>
> - Arnold
>
> Mark Taylor wrote:
> > On Wed, 14 Apr 2004, martin hill wrote:
> >
> > > While I appreciate that VOTable can be used to wrap FITS,
> this is (I
> > > hope) a temporary measure while we sort out our data models and
> > > representations. We should recognise it as such and put future
> > > effort into producing suitable solutions, not in
> overloading VOTable
> > > to represent all data formats. FITS files too have
> limited structures.
> >
> > I don't see it as a temporary measure. VOTable is not supposed to
> > represent all data formats, FITS is a special case. From
> sec 2.3 of
> > the VOTable document:
> >
> > "the transformation of FITS to VOTable is meant to be reversible"
> >
> > The kind of data (though not metadata) which can be held in
> a VOTable
> > is by design compatible with the FITS binary table format, so that
> > requiring the possible storage of VOTable bulk data using a FITS
> > binary table does not introduce any additional limitations (put
> > another way, VOTable explicitly accepts the limitations of
> FITS binary
> > tables as far as pure data storage streams go).
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > --
> > Mark Taylor Starlink Programmer Physics, Bristol
> University, UK
> > m.b.taylor-at-bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776
> > http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------
> Arnold H. Rots Chandra X-ray
> Science Center
> Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory tel: +1
> 617 496 7701
> 60 Garden Street, MS 67 fax: +1
> 617 495 7356
> Cambridge, MA 02138
> arots-at-head.cfa.harvard.edu
> USA
> http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------
>
Received on 2004-04-14Z15:53:09