2008 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > Introduction to NetCDF-4
11.1 NetCDF-4 Features
Features of netCDF-4 address netCDF-3 limitations.
Features of the netCDF-4 data model include:
- Multiple unlimited dimensions
- String type
- Additional numeric types
- Unicode names
- Groups for nested scopes
- User-defined compound types (portable structs)
- User-defined variable-length types for ragged arrays
- User-defined enumeration types for compact self-description
Performance benefits of the HDF5-based netCDF-4 format include:
- Per-variable compression
- Per-variable multidimensional tiling (chunking)
- Ample variable sizes
- Reader-Makes-Right conversion
- Efficient dynamic schema changes
- Parallel I/O
2008 Unidata NetCDF Workshop for Developers and Data Providers > Introduction to NetCDF-4