Subject: IMAGE or BINTABLES extensions ?

From: [email-masked] (Immanuel Freedman)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 12:41:33 -0400

Colleagues
 The COsmic Background Explorer project at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
would like to distribute released data in FITS format from the National
Space Science Data Center.

 Would our esteemed colleagues prefer to receive the data in BINTABLES or
IMAGE format ?

 We have determined that IMAGE extensions are more effective than BINTABLES
in terms of file size and data access time for our internal use.

 Thank-you for your replies in advance,

 Dr. Immanuel Freedman

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 02:16:10 -0400

IMAGE extension seems for us more appropriate; when stored on disk,
IMAGE are also smaller (BINTABLE generates huge files) and the headers
are more easily understandable...
Francois Ochsenbein.
=====================================================================
Internet:  [email-masked]        SPAN: SIMBAD::FRANCOIS
   Phone:  +33 88 35 84 11                      Fax: +33 88 25 01 60
    Post:  Dr Francois Ochsenbein
	   Observatoire Astronomique
	   11, rue de l'Universite
	   67000 STRASBOURG, France
=====================================================================

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From: [email-masked] (William Thompson)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 09:58:40 -0400

Dr Francois Ochsenbein writes,

> are more easily understandable...

I would like to know how using the BINTABLE extension would take up any
more space than any other convention.  A priori, there doesn't seem to
be any reason for this.

William Thompson

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From: [email-masked] (William Pence)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 11:41:18 -0400

> Would our esteemed colleagues prefer to receive the data in BINTABLES or

Which FITS format to use I think should be driven by the format of the
data themselves.  If the data are are simple N-dimensional arrays, and
if all the related descriptive information can easily be represented as
keyword values, then using the IMAGE extension would seem most
appropriate.  If, on the otherhand,  the data are more tabular or list
structured, then the BINTABLE format would be more suitable.   The
BINTABLE format is also usually better suited for more complicated data
structures which cannot be naturally represented  as an N-dimensional
array.

-Bill Pence