[fitsbits] FITS BoF at ADASS and DRWG

[Lucio Chiappetti]

I'd like to inform the FITS community (initially) that at the ADASS in 
Trieste (16-20 October) there will be a Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) 
one-and-half-hour session on FITS ... and not only.

I include below the abstract I submitted (it was accepted and I am waiting 
for the final schedule).

As you see, I intend to give a two-fold orientation to my presentation.

One would be to summarize the work done recently on the FITS standard (and 
that will be easy and brief), the other one is to collect inputs for the 
new Data Representation WG.

I plan to distribute to FITSBITS soon a draft document about this new IAU 
working group which should incorporate the current FITS WG. The 
announcement should be spread also to other forums of potentially 
interested people (ideally IAU members).

I would like initially to collect ideas about the Data Representation WG 
here on FITSBITS, and exploit the ADASS BoF session as a way to tak 
face-to-face about it.

Please tell me if you are coming to the ADASS, what are your suggestions 
on the matter, and feel free to spread the news, and any future material 
I will circulate !


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FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) and Data Representations WG BoF.
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Proposed by L.Chiappetti, chair, IAU FITS WG
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FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) data format, developed in the late 
1970s, has proven a successful de facto standard data interchange format 
of astronomy.

Since 1988 the IAU FITS Working Group has been charged, with a resolution 
of the International Astronomical Union, to mantain the FITS data format 
existing standard and approve future extensions. With the recent reform of 
IAU commissions and working groups, the FITS WG will be absorbed in the 
new Data Representations WG, in order to consider the broadening of the 
data landscape, where some new facilities are exploring alternatives to 
the FITS standard in order to manage their issues of data scale and 
complexity. The new WG shall manage a careful and minimally disruptive 
transition from FITS to more modern and capable data representations, in a 
way to assure and maintain the fluent interoperability of telescope data 
that has not only made multi-wavelength astronomical research commonplace, 
but has also made our data management practices the envy of many other 
disciplines.

The proposed BoF session will allow to present collectively the last 
updates to the FITS standard, with the time representation WCS and the 
incorporation of a number of useful conventions, as well as to act as a 
"constituent phase" for the new Data Representation WG.

-- 
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Lucio Chiappetti - INAF/IASF - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
For more info : http://www.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/personal.html
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