An important component of scientific work is being able to take your data with you as you move from one position to another, and being able to work with the data files on the computer systems at your new institute. Similarly, it's vital to be able to exchange data files with colleagues or just read your own files in multiple different packages.
Therefore it is important to have standards-based data formats that are openly and well documented so that anyone can implement a reader and writer for the format. Please use this page to list:
- the data formats you use
- the Debian packages needed for working with the format
- software used with that format that's not in Debian
hdf5
[http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu/["HDF5"]/ Hierarchical Data format] is an extremely flexible format, possibly too flexible for its own good
- Open Spec: YES
- Packages
[http://packages.debian.org/stable/science/hdf5-tools hdf5-tools] (and many other related packages)
FITS
[http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Flexible Image Transport System] was developed for astronomy, but could be used by many disciplines. One notable feature is good support for World Coordinates, i.e. translation between pixel coordinates and physical coordinates such as Longitude & Latitude, Frequency, Stokes parameters (polarisation).
- Open Spec: YES
- Packages
[http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/libcfitsio2 libcfitsio2] (plus perl wrappers)
[http://packages.debian.org/stable/math/pdl pdl] display & analysis
[http://packages.debian.org/stable/science/saods9 saods9] image viewer
XML variants
[wiki:Self:VOTable http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/latest/VOT.html] Virtual Observatory Table format
- Open Spec: YES
- Packages
Links
[http://www.microformats.org/ microformats] may be a useful avenue to explore
A [http://www.openraw.org/ raw] digital camera format is essential for scientific imaging work