spectral WCS in FITS

[Markus Dolensky]

Robert Hanisch wrote:
> An earlier draft of the spectral WCS used binary tables, but entire columns
> rather than vector cells.  That format would indeed have been representable
> in ASCII tables.

In that case I strongly support the earlier approach with exactly one value per 
table cell. Even more so, IF the reasons to change it was just performance 
related(?).

Anita Richards wrote:
> Put another way, there is certainly the need for a standard, but that
> should be independent of how it is implimented to describe FITS, VOTable,
> ascii or whatever.

In case of a data model it should indeed be independent of a particular 
implementation. But a data access layer without hooks to existing formats and 
protocols appears of little practical use. Therefore, it does make sense to 
keep in sync with the FITS community as far as data representation is 
concerned. If not we pay the price in terms of more complicated systems.

Markus