DRAFT netCDF/ HDF Design Document
> CDF
> NetCDF grew out of the experience of CDF (common Data Format), developed at
> NASA.
> As far as the netCDF/ HDF effort is concerned, the main difference between
> netCDF and
> CDF is that CDF stores each variable object in a seperate file, whereas
> netCDF stores
> all of its data in a single file. It is a secondary goal to also support
> CDF. Such
> support will not be part of the initial release.
This statement is not correct. CDF allows for single file OR multi file
implementations,
and has done so for over a year. The multi file is used in some cases because
it is a bit
faster. CDF also has host and network incodings. A CDF can be converted from a
portable
binary format to a format that is a native binary format of the machine the CDF
is on. The
main difference between netCDF and CDF is in the tools. The NASA CDF format
has tools to
subset any CDF into any dimension on many platforms. For example if I have a
global CDF with
DATE,LAT,LON, and TEMP variables in a CDF I can enter a subset of DATE,LAT,LON
and generate a
flat ASCII file or a smaller CDF. The tools work on SUN, HP, SGI, VMS, CRAY,
IBM, and DOS.
There is a port in progress to port the software to the MAC. CDF also has
graphic tools to
view CDF data. One of these tools, CXIT, currently runs under X and will be
released soon
for the MAC.
We have a current CD-ROM with this CDF data that contains over sixty GEDEX
data sets.
Sixty of the most important climate change data sets, over 1100 mb of data on
two CD-Roms.
The CD-Rom is free of charge. The tools run on SUN, HP, SGI, VMS, and DOS. All
software is
on the CD-ROM. The software will allow the user to quickly extract data from
the CD-Rom into
ASCII files. For more information on the GEDEX CD-ROM contact NCDS USO at
NCDSUSO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx For more information on CDF contact
CDFSUPPORT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hank Griffioen
