Subject: Warnock etal Compression Paper Available

From: dwells at fits.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells)
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1991 19:03:57 GMT

"An Extension of FITS for Data Compression", A.Warnock, R.Hill,
B.Pfarr and D.Wells, 11 pages, is now available for anonymous-FTP
access on fits.cx.nrao.edu [192.33.115.8] in directory FITS/doc:

-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb        171951 Sep 25 13:47 fitscomp.ps
-rw-r--r--  1 dwells   vlb         27267 Sep 25 13:46 fitscomp.tex

LaTeX typeset the date of the document as today 25Sept91. This is
misleading; the document was originally composed circa 1988, and was
presented in a WGAS paper session about that date.

I (DCW) am a co-author on this paper, but this does not mean that I
think that the approach presented in the paper is the only possible
approach to compression of FITS files, or even the best approach. I
reserve judgement on the latter question.  My attitude is that the
FITS community needs to study and debate a series of papers like this
one, and construct some prototypes (hopefully interoperable
prototypes!), before we settle on one or more canonical standard
schemes. This paper is an essential step in the process.

--

Donald C. Wells             Associate Scientist        dwells at nrao.edu
National Radio Astronomy Observatory                   +1-804-296-0277
Edgemont Road                                     Fax= +1-804-296-0278
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA            78:31.1W, 38:02.2N

---

From: warnock at nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Archie Warnock)
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1991 14:14:00 GMT

In article <DWELLS.91Sep25140357 at fits.cx.nrao.edu>, dwells at fits.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) writes...
>schemes. This paper is an essential step in the process.

I agree strongly with this statement.  We made Don a co-author in
recognition of some major suggestions he made which (in our opinion)
made the proposal a viable one, not just to share in the blame <g>.  It
is a _proposal_, though.  It's a starting point for discussion, and I
hope it will generate plenty.  I want problems to be uncovered _before_
it's in use too widely. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Archie Warnock                     Internet:  warnock at nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
-- ST Systems Corp.                   SPAN:      NSSDC::WARNOCK
-- NASA/GSFC                          "Unix - JCL for the 90s"