[fitsbits] [wfc] Bintable standards: Voting result

[Arnold Rots]

To the FITS community,

I am happy to announce the approval of the two Binary Table proposals
appended below, by the WGAS FITS Committee (the North American
regional FITS standards committee).
These two proposals basically put an offical stamp of approval on what
has been common practice for quite a while.
The proposals are now to be taken up by the other two regional
committees, before going to the IAU FITS Working Group.

Also, there has been a change in the committee's membership: Eric
Mandel's place will be taken by Jonathan McDowell, also from SAO,
whose expertise in coordinate and data model issues is known to most
of us.
I would like to thank Eric for his many years of service and for his
contributions to the workings of the WFC.

  - Arnold Rots
    WFC Chairman

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Arnold H. Rots                                Chandra X-ray Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 67                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head-cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
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Subject: [fitsbits] Bintable proposals
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 11:25:28 -0500
From: William Pence <pence at tetra.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Organization: NASA/GSFC
To: "Teuben, Peter" <teuben at astro.umd.edu>
CC: "Tody, Doug" <tody at noao.edu>, "Cotton, Bill" <bcotton at nrao.edu>,"Wells,
Don" <dwells at nrao.edu>

Peter,

We hereby formally submit these 2 proposals for consideration by the WGAS
FITS committee.


Sincerely,

Bill Pence, NASA/GSFC
Doug Tody, NOAO
Bill Cotton, NRAO


Proposal 1:
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       Recommendation to Incorporate the "Variable Length Array" 
          Facility in Binary Tables into the FITS Standard

     W.D. Pence (NASA/GSFC), D. Tody (NOAO), and W.D. Cotton (NRAO)
                           2 November 2001


The "Variable Length Array" FITS data format that is described in Appendix
B.1 of the FITS Standard is now used by a number of major data analysis
packages.  Examples of current usage include the "Redistribution Matrix
Files" (RMF), widely used in X-ray astronomy to store calibration
information about the instrumental detector gain and detector energy
resolution, and the pixel mask files used in the IRAF system.   Several
software systems provide general capabilities for reading and writing data
in this variable length array format, including the CFITSIO library
(maintained by the HEASARC at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) and IRAF.

Appendix B.1 is not an official part of the FITS Standard and is included in
that document for informational purposes only.  We believe that the
implementations described above have now fully demonstrated the usefulness
and importance of the Variable Length Array Facility, and thus we hereby
propose that Appendix B.1  be officially approved and incorporated into the
FITS Standard in its entirety.

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Proposal 2:
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       Recommendation to Incorporate the "Multidimensional Array" 
          Convention in Binary Tables into the FITS Standard

     W.D. Pence (NASA/GSFC), D. Tody (NOAO), and W.D. Cotton (NRAO) 
                           2 November 2001

Appendix B.2 in the FITS Standard describes a "Multidimensional array"
convention that uses the TDIMn keyword to define the dimensionality of
arrays that are contained in binary table columns.  Many FITS files now use
this convention and contain the TDIMn keyword.  Appendix B.2 is not an
official part of the FITS Standard, however, and is included in that
document for informational purposes only.  We believe that the widespread
usage of the TDIMn keyword demonstrates the usefulness and importance of the
this convention, and thus we hereby propose that the "Multidimensional
array" convention described in Appendix B.2 be officially approved and
incorporated into the FITS Standard.
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