From Ocean Teacher Library
Marine Data Format TypesContents |
Background
There is no formal typology of scientific data format types, but clearly there are broad groupings based on similarity. Within the marine sciences, the editors of OceanTeacher 1.0 originally catalogued over 300 known formats used in recent and contemporary data sources. This number has fortunately dropped during the past decade, as some formats disappeared and a few became widely used as "de facto" standards. It has been useful from the beginning to group them by type, because similar (or identical) methods can be used to manage all datasets within any type.
The current data formats typology is re-arranged from that used in OceanTeacher 1.0, for images and mapping. For completeness we recognize now the Compression type; and the former Stratified type has been re-named the Archive type. If you browse through these subsections, you can see examples of most ASCII formats displayed directly.
Windows/PC Bias
The OceanTeacher training program is principally concerned with the advance of marine data management skills among a global community of scientists who rely mainly on the Windows operating system on a personal computer. Our bias toward these resources is quite obvious, particularly in the materials presented here. If you are fortunate enough to have more advanced resources, then we also usually find that the materials presented here do not target you. Where truly good training or explanatory materials exist, we aim to include UNIX/LINUX applications that can be installed in "X-augmented" Windows systems, but only when no comparable native Windows application exists. Also, in many articles you will find that the views expressed are completely based on the Windows/PC paradigm, without any reference to UNIX/LINUX options or other higher-level systems. We apologize beforehand for this myopia, but by means of this paragraph we've tried to warn you.
Additional Resources
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Subsections of this Article
| Pagename | Short title | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Archive Formats | Archive Formats | Archive Formats | Archive formats are similar to spreadsheets, but contain more than one row format. Typically they have one format to indicate cruise information, another for station information, and another for the actual measured parameter values. |
| Auxiliary Formats | Auxiliary Formats | Auxiliary Formats | Auxiliary formats are usually small files that contain instructions (or other information) that an executable program needs in order to use the data file. They are much less comprehensive than true metadata files, which can play similar roles |
| Compression Formats | Compression Formats | Compression Formats | These formats are used for efficient storage or transmission of data, using a variety of compression algorithms in software programs that range from open-source to commercial. |
| Document Formats | Document Formats | Document Formats | The data are contained in formats usually concerned with digital documents, including proprietary formats (e.g. DOC) or elaborately formatted ASCII text. |
| Hard Copy Formats | Hard Copy Formats | Hard Copy Formats | Data on paper, including all types of journals, logbooks, periodicals, etc. |
| Markup Language Formats | Markup Language Formats | Markup Language Formats | A markup language is an artificial language using a set of annotations to text that give instructions regarding how text is to be displayed. |
| Message Formats | Message Formats | Message Formats | Highly specified, formal code sequences for reporting weather and surface marine observations. |
| Metadata Standards | Metadata Standards | Metadata Standards | A metadata standard is a common set of terms and definitions that describe data. |
| Raster and Grid Formats | Raster and Grid Formats | Raster and Grid Formats | In the earth sciences, a gridded data file is usually thought of as a set of numbers making up a rectilinear array (i.e. rows and columns) of parameter values, and the raster is sometimes thought of as a visualization of the grid. Both are essential inputs to geographic information systems. |
| Relational Database Formats | Relational Database Formats | Relational Database Formats | The formats used by Relational Database Management Systems, universally binary and completely invisible to the user. |
| Self-Describing Formats | Self-Describing Formats | Self-Describing Formats | These formats contain extensive internal metadata, which provides user systems with all the information needed for both use and discovery. Station data, grids and rasters can be accommodated in these formats. |
| Spreadsheet Formats | Spreadsheet Formats | Spreadsheet Formats | An array of rows and columns, each cell containing either alphanumeric text or numeric values. The columns in the spreadsheet, usually labeled in the first row, contain separate types of information; the rows contain all the separate types of information associated with a single entity, such as an oceanographic station. All rows in a true spreadsheet have exactly the same format. |
| Vector Formats | Vector Formats | Vector Formats | Files containing digital representations of geometric forms, such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based upon mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics. An essential input to geographic information systems. |
Information about this article
Short title: Data Format Types
Description: Descriptions (with examples) of the 13 basic types of formats encountered in the marine sciences.
Expertise level: beginner
Author: Murray.Brown
Approval status: approved
Approved by: Murray.Brown
Last change: 2010-8-22
Subsection of: Marine Data Infrastructure
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