minimalist CF-netCDF "profile" document

• To: "Unidata GALEON" <galeon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Subject: minimalist CF-netCDF "profile" document
• From: "Ben Domenico" <bendomenico@xxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:23:48 -0600

Hi,

One of the problems we ran into in attempting to write a profile
document that maps between the characteristics of CF-netCDF and WCS is
that WCS, netCDF, and CF are all undergoing revisions.  Consequently
the mapping between the two realms will be constantly out of date as
any of the elements evolves.

One way to avoid much of this built-in obsolescence is to construct a
minimalist CF-netCDF encoding format document that consists mainly of
pointers to the up-to-date sources of information relating to netCDF
and the associated CF conventions.  For someone working on a WCS
client or server for the CF-netCDF encoding format, this document
should be what is needed to get started.  It provides brief
descriptions of the technologies and pointers to

-- documentation
-- code
-- support mechanisms
-- descriptions of the "what, where, when" metadata.

I put a draft at:

  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/projects/THREDDS/GALEON/netCDFprofile-short.htm

for comparison with the previous attempt:

  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/projects/THREDDS/GALEON/WCSnetCDFencoding.htm

At the other end of the spectrum are full, formal GML-based
specifications that will eventually come from the ncML-GML and CSML
initiatives.

Let's discuss this during the teleconference tomorrow morning.

-- Ben