Subject: BINTABLE, IMAGE and Blocking proposals accepted!

From: "Preben Grosbol <pgrosbol at ns2.hq.eso.org>" <pgrosbol at ns2.hq.eso.org>
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 16:18:08 +0200

The IAU FITS Working Group has reviewed and tested proposals for a
BINTABLE Extension, an IMAGE Extension and Blocking rules after they
were recommended by the three local FITS Committees.  A number of
minor corrections and clarifications were made as a result of this
review cycle.

 The final votes on the revised text of these proposals were made with
deadlines of May 6 and June 10. The results were:

   Blocking rules    :  14 yes, 0 no, 0 abstention     of 16 members,
   IMAGE extension   :  14 yes, 0 no, 0 abstention     of 16 members,
   BINTABLE extension:  13 yes, 0 no, 2 abstention     of 16 members.

 The voting rules of the IAU FITS Working Group require that at least
3/4 of the members votes YES and none voted against for a proposal to
be accepted in the first vote. Thus, all three proposals have been
accepted as standards by the IAU FITS Working Group.

 The final text of the proposals can be obtained through the FITS
archive (anonymous ftp) at fits.cv.nrao.edu in the subdirectory
'fits/documents/standards' with the file names:

          147107 Jun 13 19:34 bintable3.ps
           39389 Jun 13 19:34 bintable3.tex
            2126 May 11 00:41 blocking94.txt
           94980 Jun  4  1992 image.ps
           12973 Mar 12  1992 image.tex

Copies of these files are also available in the anonymous ftp account
at ftphost.hq.eso.org in compressed format under the same directory.
Note that the IMAGE Extension has been published in J.D.Ponz,
R.W.Thompson and J.R.Munoz (1994): A&A Suppl. 105, pp.53-55.

The following two issues should be noted:
  1) BINTABLE Extension
      The acceptance of the BINTABLE extension as a standard refers
      only to the main part of the document (i.e. excluding the
      appendices).  The conversions discusses in these appendices
      still have to be discussed before a final proposal is made.

  2) IMAGE Extension
      The following clarification was added in the review:
        'Only PCOUNT=0/GCOUNT=1 is allowed (as specified in Table 1).
         Section 3.1.5 and 3.1.6 shall be interpreted in this sense.'

Best regards,

Preben Grosbol
Chairman, IAU FITS WG