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Re: Request for info

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  • Subject: Re: Request for info
  • Date: Mon, 09 May 1994 14:50:49 -0600
> Organization: NCAR/SCD
> Keywords: 199405051855.AA25481

Hi Don,

> Hi Russ. Just got back from the MetaCenter meeting and I've got to
> hit you up for some info. One issue, among many others, that came up was
> the importance of data formats and API's. It seems NASA has "standardized"
> on HDF for EOS and the metacenter folks were not discussing much else.
> I stated that I felt netCDF use and support (e.g. IBM's Data Explorer,
> IDL, Wavefront, etc.) was growing and that we should consider it.

We knew something about this; netCDF was one of the candidates for EOS
standardization, but it's my understanding that it was rejected because of
the lack of a large collection of freely-available utilities, and because
NCSA was implementing the netCDF interface over HDF anyway.  By choosing
HDF, the NASA group that was selecting among available data interfaces
thought they could get the advantages of NCSA's utilities and also get the
netCDF interface.  I've never actually seen any published report of the
evaluation, so all of this is second- and third-hand information.

> Apparently you can read netCDF through an HDF interface, but not
> generate it. Anyway, my reward for opening my mouth is that I must
> write the data format of a "white paper", which is bad because I have
> to write something but, on the other hand, good because I get to influence
> this direction. Can you provide any information, quanititative or otherwise,
> on netCDF/HDF use, the size and composition of your user base, and where you
> see things headed?

I don't know anything quantitative about HDF use vs. netCDF use. Their is
some information about usage available by clicking on the "Who Uses NetCDF?"
link in the netCDF home page:

        http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/index.html

but some of this may be out of date.  You can also see lots of information
about HDF, netCDF, and other scientific data formats by aiming your WWW
client at 

        http://sslab.colorado.edu:2222/datastandards.html

the "Data Standards and Formats" page maintained by the Software Support
Laboratory of LASP (?).

--Russ