From richard@technology.com Thu Mar 3 10:48:32 1994 X-VM-Summary-Format: "%n %*%a %-17.17F %-3.3m %2d %4l/%-5c %I\"%s\"\n" X-VM-Labels: nil X-VM-VHeader: ("Resent-" "From:" "Sender:" "To:" "Apparently-To:" "Cc:" "Subject:" "Date:") nil X-VM-Bookmark: 2 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["460" "Tue" " 1" "March" "1994" "14:00:05" "GMT" "Richard Murphy" "richard@technology.com" "<1994Mar1.140005.11939@technology.com>" "15" "Best archive of conversion codes" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1994030114:00:05" "Best archive of conversion codes" (number " " mark " Richard Murphy Mar 1 15/460 " thread-indent "\"Best archive of conversion codes\"\n") nil] nil) Path: saips.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!concert!gatech!swrinde!ctcvax.ccf.swri.edu!technology.com!richard Newsgroups: sci.data.formats Message-ID: <1994Mar1.140005.11939@technology.com> Organization: Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas Keywords: Format conversions Lines: 15 From: richard@technology.com (Richard Murphy) Subject: Best archive of conversion codes Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 14:00:05 GMT I'm searching for two things: 1: Your idea of the best archive of format conversion utilities. I've found a few sites that have format X --> HDF codes, but I think there are places that have collected many different kinds of conversion codes together. 2: references to computer science publications concerning using AI techniques for data reorganization or special languages to describe data formats (like TSN) Many thanks. Richard Murphy richard@swri.edu From dean@phobos.cira.colostate.edu Thu Mar 3 10:48:41 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["294" "" " 3" "March" "1994" "05:29:27" "GMT" "dean@phobos.cira.colostate.edu" "dean@phobos.cira.colostate.edu" "<1994Mar3.052927.127666@yuma>" "8" "Re: Best archive of conversion codes" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1994030305:29:27" "Best archive of conversion codes" (number " " mark " dean@phobos.cira. Mar 3 8/294 " thread-indent "\"Re: Best archive of conversion codes\"\n") "<1994Mar1.140005.11939@technology.com>"] nil) Newsgroups: sci.data.formats Path: saips.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!concert!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!sdd.hp.com!col.hp.com!csn!yuma!DEAN@phobos.cira.colostate.edu Message-ID: <1994Mar3.052927.127666@yuma> Reply-To: dean%phobos.dnet@sirius.cira.colostate.edu References: <1994Mar1.140005.11939@technology.com> Nntp-Posting-Host: sol.cira.colostate.edu Organization: Colorado State Univ, CIRA Lines: 8 From: dean@phobos.cira.colostate.edu Subject: Re: Best archive of conversion codes Date: 3 Mar 94 05:29:27 GMT Subscribe to alt.graphics.pixutils. An anouncement of the updated release of NETPBM conversion utils was just posted. Also, the FAQ for this same group was posted a couple of days ago which list several conversion utils programs available over the internet. Kelly Dean CSU/CIRA From sxu@ncsa.uiuc.edu Thu Mar 10 21:32:05 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["6018" "" "11" "March" "1994" "00:04:26" "GMT" "Shiming Xu" "sxu@ncsa.uiuc.edu" "<2locia$3e0@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>" "154" "HDF Newsletter" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1994031100:04:26" "HDF Newsletter" (number " " mark " Shiming Xu Mar 11 154/6018 " thread-indent "\"HDF Newsletter\"\n") nil] nil) Path: saips.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!caen!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!sxu Newsgroups: sci.data.formats Organization: Nat'l Ctr for Supercomp App (NCSA) @ University of Illinois Lines: 154 Distribution: world Message-ID: <2locia$3e0@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: xongmao.ncsa.uiuc.edu Originator: sxu@xongmao.ncsa.uiuc.edu From: sxu@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Shiming Xu) Subject: HDF Newsletter Date: 11 Mar 1994 00:04:26 GMT HDF Newsletter March 10, 1994 Contents 1. Introduction 2. Announcement on HDF3.3 release 3 3. The first official release of the HDF Reference Manual V3.3 4. Information about limits in HDF releases 5. ANSI C in future versions 6. Policy on Fortran 90 support for HDF 7. Update on NCSA tools 8. New contributions Introduction ============ We are trying to start writing the next newsletter as soon as the previous one has been sent out. We will build it up over time with paragraphs and will keep it with file name Newsletter???.draft on ftp so that people can view it periodically to see what was up. An .html file is also available on the NCSA ftp server. Announcement on HDF3.3 Release 3 ================================ HDF3.3r3 was officially released on Feb.28. It contains some improvements in the SD interface, Vdata interface, and fixed a couple of memory leaks. Operating systems Windows NT and Solaris are now supported as well as machines based on the Intel i860. See ABOUT_3.3r3 for more details. A patch was put in HDF/HDF3.3r3/patches/ on March 2 in order to prevent problems when older applications programs open HDF3.3r3 files. With the latest release, by request, Vdata field names now are case sensitive. A patch was added so that the sds interface doesn't create vdatas with case sensitive names so that existing applications programs do not have trouble reading the files. The first official release of the HDF Reference Manual V3.3 =========================================================== Many thanks for the feedback from HDF users on the draft of HDF Reference Manual V3.3. We have revised the documentation and its first officail version is now available on the NCSA ftp server,in subdirectory Documentation/HDF3.3/Ref_Manual/. The draft was moved to Documentation/HDF3.3/Ref_Manual_draft/ temporarily. It will be removed from the ftp server on March 1, 1994. Information about limits in HDF releases ======================================== The current implementation of HDF contains limits on certain aspects of hdf files. Some of the limits are defined in the library, others are implied by the number types of parameters which are used in HDF internally. Recently several users' applications happened to reach one or another limits which caused various error messages or core dumps. To address this problem, a section of 'Limits of the current release' was inserted into the ABOUT_3.3r3. A limits.html file is also available on the www HDF information server. ANSI C in future versions ========================= We raised the ANSI C issue in Newsletter12 dated Dec. 23, 1993. Up to now very few responses have been received. Since it will probably affect a certain number of HDF users, we are re-posting the section of 'ANSI C in HDF 4.0' of the Newsletter12 below hoping to draw users objections and comments. ANSI C in HDF 4.0 ----------------- There has been some discussion among the members of the HDF development team about the issue of our next major release (v4.0) being primarily targeted towards the use of ANSI C conforming compilers. We would like to have v4.0 and all further releases of the HDF library and utilities be written to only compile with ANSI C compilers. We believe this will increase the clarity and maintainability of our code. In the interests of maintaining backwards compatibility with K&R C compilers, we would distribute in the release Peter Deutsch's ansi2knr tool which can convert ANSI C code into K&R compliant code. This would allow older K&R C compilers continued access to new versions of the library. Please respond to Quincey Koziol at koziol@ncsa.uiuc.edu for future correspondence on this issue. Policy on Fortran 90 support for HDF ==================================== Some user's have asked the NCSA HDF group if we plan to support Fortran 90 versions of the HDF APIs. After some discussion, we have determined that this would not be simple, for several reasons, including: There are significant differences between Fortran 90 and Fortran 77, which we currently do support Fortran 90 compilers are not currently implemented on many platforms that HDF is currently supported on Support for Fortran 90 should probably involve adding new capabilities to the Fortran interface, such as support for structures and dynamic memory allocation. Such capabilities are desirable, but substantial resources are required to implement them in HDF. Hence, we have adopted the following policy on Fortran 90 support for HDF: "The HDF library does not currently support Fortran 90 APIs for any of its interfaces. The HDF group has no plans to support Fortran 90 APIs until a compelling need is observed for such support, Fortran 90 compilers become available on most platforms that HDF currently supports, and sufficient resources can be obtained for implementing Fortran 90 APIs." Update on NCSA Tools ==================== XDataSlice 2.3 is now available on the NCSA ftp server, in directory: /UNIX/XDataSlice/XDS2.3/ XDS2.3 fixes some memory leaks; allows 2 Colormaps (when using the palette editor), one for the dicer images and one for the other windows; includes more communication support. Read the README file in that directory for details about the new features in XDS2.3. New contributions ================= HDF3.2r2 was ported to FreeBSD on IBM-PC 386/486. Pedro Vazquez, vazquez@iqm.unicamp.br ported HDF3.2r2 to FreeBSD on IBM-PC 386/486. This HDF port suports all HDF features under C and almost all under fortran. The library works with both gnu f77 and f2c/gcc. The library was used to compile XDataSlice and it's able to read hdf files created on Suns and IBM as well create hdf files readable by these machines. There are no byte order problems. The port is in HDF/contrib/HDF3.2r2.FreeBSD.386.486 From hughes@i5.msi.umn.edu Mon Mar 21 22:45:54 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["491" "Tue" "22" "March" "1994" "00:43:20" "GMT" "Matt Hughes" "hughes@i5.msi.umn.edu" "" "15" "Re: MPEG and MPEG II" "^From:" nil nil "3" "1994032200:43:20" "MPEG and MPEG II" (number " " mark " Matt Hughes Mar 22 15/491 " thread-indent "\"Re: MPEG and MPEG II\"\n") "<1994Mar18.191857.1884@sevaxu.cica.es>"] nil) Newsgroups: sci.data.formats Path: saips.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!concert!news.duke.edu!MathWorks.Com!yeshua.marcam.com!zip.eecs.umich.edu!umn.edu!i5.msi.umn.edu!hughes Message-ID: Nntp-Posting-Host: i5.msi.umn.edu Organization: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities References: <1994Mar18.191857.1884@sevaxu.cica.es> Lines: 15 From: hughes@i5.msi.umn.edu (Matt Hughes) Sender: news@news.cis.umn.edu (Usenet News Administration) Subject: Re: MPEG and MPEG II Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 00:43:20 GMT mgs@goliat (M. Garcia Silvente) writes: >Hi, > Where I can find documentation about the MPEG and the MPEG II formats??? If you use WWW, try URL http://www.crs4.it/HTML/LUIGI/MPEG/mpegfaq.html WWW is World Wide Web. If you don't, sorry. -- Matt Hughes, Graphics Support Coordinator University of Minnesota Supercomputer Institute 1200 Washington Avenue South Ph: (612) 626-1765 Minneapolis, MN 55415 hughes@msi.umn.edu From ilana@kiowa.scd.ucar.edu Thu Mar 31 22:25:06 1994 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1787" "" " 1" "April" "1994" "00:36:27" "GMT" "Ilana Stern" "ilana@kiowa.scd.ucar.edu" "<2nfqab$4n0@ncar.ucar.edu>" "38" "Re: Standards for exchange of scientific data via WWW?" "^From:" nil nil "4" "1994040100:36:27" "Standards for exchange of scientific data via WWW?" (number " " mark " Ilana Stern Apr 1 38/1787 " thread-indent "\"Re: Standards for exchange of scientific data via WWW?\"\n") "<2nf8m1$mkf@hsdndev.harvard.edu>"] nil) Xref: saips.cv.nrao.edu comp.infosystems.www:11998 sci.data.formats:407 Path: saips.cv.nrao.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!darwin.sura.net!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ncar!kiowa.scd.ucar.edu!ilana Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www,sci.data.formats Organization: NCAR/UCAR Lines: 38 Distribution: world Message-ID: <2nfqab$4n0@ncar.ucar.edu> References: <2nf8m1$mkf@hsdndev.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: kiowa.scd.ucar.edu From: ilana@kiowa.scd.ucar.edu (Ilana Stern) Subject: Re: Standards for exchange of scientific data via WWW? Date: 1 Apr 1994 00:36:27 GMT In article <2nf8m1$mkf@hsdndev.harvard.edu>, Jeff E Mandel writes: > I have the following questions: > > 1) Has anyone else discussed the possibility of distributing datasets via > WWW? There are two issues here: the format of the dataset, and the method of distribution. We (NCAR) distribute some datasets by ftp, and we have a quasi-WWW site (it's hypertext served by ftp, until we get a real http server), so in a sense you could say we distribute datasets via WWW. But the data format is not MIMEish or anything -- it's mostly just ascii (or occasionally packed binary) data. See ftp://ncardata.ucar.edu/catalogs/.html/README.html for examples. > 2) Are there any standards for dataset formats? I need something more > efficient than tab-delimited text. See the sci.data.formats FAQ (I've crossposted to that group) at http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/HDF/SciDataFormatsFAQ.html I think HDF is understood by Mosaic. Basically, packed binary data is the way to go for most scientific datasets, because it's 1) efficient and 2) not machine-dependent. > 3) Is there a way to build a WAIS index of this, so that only the text is > indexed, and not the data? Consider the file containing the 200 word > abstract of the paper "Creatine > blood levels in 500 patients with chronic renal failure sampled at 10 > minute intervals for 3 years" followed by the gazillion values Michael Schwartz at the University of Colorado has done some work creating a Wais indexing scheme called Essence which does just this. -- /\ "This technique probably only makes the difference | dod#0009 \_][ between serious injury and total disaster." | ilana@ncar.ucar.edu \__Ilana Stern