ρζητα

(pronounced "rosetta")

Status Report: September 2012- April 2013

Sean Arms, Jen Oxelson, Jeff Weber

Strategic Focus Areas

The ρζητα group's work supports the following Unidata funding proposal focus areas:

  1. Enable widespread, efficient access to geoscience data

    The initial goal of ρζητα is to transform unstructured ASCII data files into the netCDF format; once in this format, standard tools, such as the THREDDS Data Server, IDV, Python, and other analysis packages, can take advantage of these datasets with relative ease.

  2. Develop and provide open-source tools for effective use of geoscience data

    Although the primary goal of ρζητα is to get data into the netCDF format, the transformation process does not stop there. The ρζητα group realizes that not everyone knows how to work with netCDF files, and may feel more comfortable working with other formats. Therefore, ρζητα includes the ability to transform from one format to another (e.g. netCDF to .xls), thereby reducing data friction.

  3. Provide cyberinfrastructure leadership in data discovery, access, and use

    Metadata contained in netCDF format file (no longer locked away in a separate README file) can be automatically extracted, facilitating the discovery of data in these files. Additionally, the ρζητα development plan includes the creation of a standard ASCII and spreadsheet representations of the CF-1.6 DSGs.

  4. Build, support, and advocate for the diverse geoscience community

    Promote the use of standard formats in the dissemination of data, while allowing flexibility to transform into other formats, as needed, to enable users to "do science". For commonly used formats, such as User Defined ASCII format or an unstructured spreadsheet, create and advocate for the use of a standard representations based on the CF-1.6 DSGs.


Activities Since the Last Status Report

Live demos to various groups

Live demos have been given to the ACADIS Data Advisory Committee (ADAC), the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and (soon) a group from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Presentation at AMS 2013

A presentation regarding ρζητα was given at the AMS 2013 meeting. More information, including the presentation, can be found here.

White paper

A white paper on the challenges of sharing observational datasets and how ρζητα can help.

 

Planned Activities

Ongoing Activities

We plan to continue the following lines of development:

  • Increase the number of CF-1.6 discrete sampling geometries handled by ρζητα
  • Expose an instance of ρζητα on the Unidata website for community use
  • Documentation, documentation, documentation

New Activities

We plan to enhance ρζητα in the following ways:

  • Release the ρζητα source code on github
  • Investigate csv and xls(x) representations of the CF-1.6 Discrete Sampling Geometries
  • Enable Desktop (local) use of ρζητα
  • Incorporate TDS capabilities into ρζητα, allowing for TDS services (like point subsetting of grids) to easily be applied to local files

 

Relevant Metrics

None yet :-)