[fitsbits] JSONFITS, a suggestion for rendering FITS files in an Internet standards friendly format

[THIERRY FORVEILLE]

> Now you might ask won't base64 encoding bloat the file/download size?
> Yes, by about 4:3, but it turns out lossless compression largely
> undoes this, and as on the fly gzip compression is a built in feature
> in most web servers nowadays, this is basically a non issue (same
> thing for storage if you use a compressed volume). 
Note that the data in FITS files can be compressed (and the header typically
is a negligible fraction of the total size), in which case you'll pay the 4/3
penalty. Not an outrageous price if it makes the data accessible to many more
people, of course.

> So you can have
> your cake (easy to parse, human readable files) and eat it too
> (similar overall footprint as binaries).
> 
I wouldn't make too much of the human readable part, as FITS headers also
are and base64 is not what most people think of as human readable.