(from the Universal Data Format (UDF): Overview web page ) The Universal Data Format (UDF) is a generic data format optimized for use with time ordered data sets. Most of the features found in the format were developed in response to needs identified in Space Physics Data Sets, hence the general excellent match to those types of data formats. The basic highlights of the UDF include: * The format is designed to store level-0 data (telemetry), with full expansion to possible multiple definitions of physical units occurring on access. This circumvents the need to reprocess data sets with every change of a calibration factor. It also removes the necessity of multiple archives to support multiple physical units. The use of level-0 data in the UDF means there is little or no expansion in the archived UDF product over that of the level-0 data. * Recognizes multiple classes of data: scalar, array, matrix. * Is supported by a full set of kernel software which is known to run on all UNIX based platforms, under INTEL-based WINDOWS and NT platforms, and under Mac/OS. The kernel software includes a built in database and access routines. * There is a large amount of UDF-based software available including: a CDF interface; an IDL interface; generic plotting programs; and a generic ASCII dump program. * The format is backed by a full archive system with built in Server/Client capability. This allows sites with the UDF-based software to promote data to their sites directly from archive sites and to have that data automatically included in their local database. --------------------------------------------- Software: (from ) All of the IMAGE software is based on a core set of C-language code written by Chris Gurgiolo. The IMAGE software branches into two separate types of applications: * Applications based on TclTk and the Gurgiolo C Code (these require either a UNIX OS or Cygwin (for Windows)) - UDFAdmin - used to install the data into the UDF database - dBAsk - used to query the UDF database to see if a particular set of data is available - CONTROL - a graphics program used to display data * Applications based on the IDL Dynamic Link Module created using the Gurgiolo C Code (euv_imtool is an example) ----------------------------------------------- UDF software is available to read the IMAGE UDF files. The following links provide the software and documentation. Main IMAGE Software site http://image.msfc.nasa.gov/ IMAGE UDF Software Installation Installation http://image.msfc.nasa.gov//Software/UDFSoftwareInstallationMenu.htm Documentation http://image.msfc.nasa.gov//Software/Documentation/UDFSoftware/Index.html IMAGE UDF DLM software (in order to use UDF data within IDL) Installation http://image.msfc.nasa.gov//Software/UDFDLMSoftwareInstallationMenu.htm Documentation http://image.msfc.nasa.gov//Software/Documentation/UDFDLMGurgiolo/Tc.html Other Software to read UDF files has been produced by the IMAGE instrument teams IMAGE/RPI (Bin Browser) Installation http://car.uml.edu/Installation/install_all.htm Documentation http://ulcar.uml.edu/rpi_BinBrowser.html IMAGE/EUV (euv_imtool IDL program) Download and Documentation http://euv.lpl.arizona.edu/euv/software/euv_imtool.html IMAGE/FUV (fuview IDL program) Download and Documentation http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~immel/extract_imageinfo.html The UDF data are also available via IMAGE archive servers. The following note provides details on how to use this software. (from SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume VIII, Issue 122, 2001) ------------------------------------------- 1. IMAGE Data Available from NSSDC and SWRI ------------------------------------------- From: "Joseph H. King" Data from all instruments on the IMAGE spacecraft are accessible from NSSDC and SWRI through "IMAGE Archive" client-server software. The data are low-processing-level data in Universal Data Format (UDF) as generated at and provided by the IMAGE Science Management Operations Center at Goddard. Users must access and install client software on their own computers prior to data access. Users should go to http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/ for an overview of the IMAGE science, data and software environment. They should then follow the IMAGE software archive link (http://image.msfc.nasa.gov/) for documentation needed to download,install, and configure the client software. The client software is a set of tools that allow the user to maintain a local collection of IMAGE data, automatically retrieve data electronically from one or more remote archives, and analyze data with a UDF plot program. The client software should be configured using the following information for the two available servers. At NSSDC: Project.Mission: IMAGE.IMAGE1 IP Address: 128.183.114.58 Port: 2450 At SWRI: Project.Mission: IMAGE.IMAGE1 IP Address: 129.162.154.19 Port: 3000 As the first server listed in the configuration file is the first tried by the client, it is suggsted for load balancing purposes that users west of the Mississippi River list the SWRI server first and others list the NSSDC server first. The IMAGE Archive client-server software was prepared by Mr. Chris Gurgiolo (Bitterroot Basic Research, Inc.) and was implemented at NSSDC by Bill Lawson and at SWRI by Georg-Micha Jahn. In addition to these "IMAGE Archive" access paths, NSSDC also provides straight ftp access to UDF products that are instrument-specific daily files tarred and zipped over all the variously processed UDF data sets (individually accessible via the IMAGE Archive path) for a given instrument. See ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft_data/image/. Higher level CDF-formatted IMAGE data are available from CDAWeb at http://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/. -------------------------------------------