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Re: scientific data format

My own experience with NetCDF (quite extensive for the past 4 years) is
mixed:

1. You should definitely get the source code and fix it up. There are
numerous bugs in the code. It was written in a fairly crude manner in
pre-ANSII C.

2. It is a 32-bit implementation that places a limit of around 2 GBytes to
the largest file.

3. It is being supplanted by HDF as the premier file format. However, if
NetCDF appears complicated, then HDF is even more so.

I have developed a universal interface to scientific data repositories
called SciDS. NetCDF is only one of its available formats. We also use it to
attach to live hardware. The advantage is that the application code needs
only to understand SciDS (very simple, even compared with NetCDF), and the
data source can be attached at runtime to whatever SciDS data source you
have, be it NetCDF, Excel CSV, live hardware, or whatever. The application
can't tell the difference.

I plan to incorporate HDF into the SciDS system also, as much to control the
complexity of the interface, as for any other reason.

CDF Appears to be an ancient NASA standard that was supplanted by NetCDF.

Hope this helps...

- DM
David McClain
Sr. Scientist
Raytheon Missile Systems Co.
Tucson, AZ
http://www.azstarnet.com/~dmcclain/homepage.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Vincent Fournier-Sicre <vfs@acri.fr>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.idl-pvwave
Date: Thursday, January 14, 1999 05:16
Subject: scientific data format


>I am still undecided whether I should use NetCDF, CDF or
>HDF format to store data. Could somebody tell me what the
>pros/cons are for each one of these formats? Is there a
>document available somewhere that compares those formats?
>By advance thanks,
>Vincent
>
>___________________________________________________
>Vincent Fournier-Sicre          vfs@acri.fr
>                                http://www.acri.fr/
>ACRI S.A.
>260 Route du Pin Montard, BP 234
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