| Netcdf |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT NETCDF | |
| meteorological data and networks | |
| computer file formats | |
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The project is actively supported, currently at version 3, and with plans underway for a version 4. It is planned to merge the project in version 4 with the HDF5 data file format, giving an alternative netCDF interface to HDF5 files. The format was originally based on the conceptual model of the NASA CDF but has since diverged and is not compatible with it. FORMAT DESCRIPTION The data format is "self-describing". This means that there is a Header which describes the layout of the rest of the file, in particular the data Array s, as well as arbitrary file metadata in the form of name/value Attributes . The format is Platform Independent , with issues such as Endianness being addressed in the Software Libraries . The data arrays are rectangular, not ragged, and stored in a simple and regular fashion that allows efficient subsetting. The new 4.0 version of the netCDF API , which is in development now, will be extended and implemented on top of the . SOFTWARE Access libraries The software libraries supplied by UCAR provide read-write access to netCDF files, encoding and decoding the necessary arrays and metadata. The core library is written in , Python , Ruby , Matlab , IDL , and Octave . The specification of the API calls is very similar across the different languages, apart from inevitable differences of syntax. The API calls for version 2 were rather different from those in version 3, but are also supported by version 3 for backward compatibility. Application programmers using supported languages need not normally be concerned with the file structure itself, even though it is available as an open format. Applications A wide range of application software has been written which makes use of netCDF files. These range from Command Line utilities to graphical Visualization packages.
COMMON USES It is commonly used in Climatology applications (e.g., Weather Forecasting , Climate Change ) and GIS applications. It is an input/output format for many GIS applications, and for general scientific data exchange. To quote from their site "NetCDF (network Common Data Form) is an interface for array-oriented data access and a library that provides an implementation of the interface. The netCDF library also defines a machine-independent format for representing scientific data." PARALLEL-NETCDF An extension of netCDF for , the I/O extension to MPI communications, and using the high-level netCDF data structures, the PnetCDF libraries can make use of optimizations to efficiently distribute the file read and write applications between multiple processors. SEE ALSO
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