Axes in Obscore: Velociity axes

Louys Mireille mireille.louys at unistra.fr
Thu Apr 23 17:25:30 CEST 2015


Hi Marco , Hi all ,

I think your use-case corresponds to the current questions we have about 
axes description.

I proposed together with Doug Tody , some way to describe the velocity 
axis, and showed this in Banff.
the slides are here : 
http://wiki.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/InterOpOct2014DM/obcore-ObsdatasetDM_compatibility.pdf

Do you think you could reconsider the table I shown , page 5 and check 
if columns starting with d_ would help in your case.
There has been several iterations with Doug Tody about this axis 
description.
I am eager to know if that would fit your needs or not.

Cheers , Mireille.


Le 23/04/2015 15:50, Marco Molinaro a écrit :
> Hi Markus, hi all,
> if this reply is confusing it's probably me not completely getting the
> points.
> So...if you get lost, discard this reply from your inbox.
>
> 2015-04-23 11:57 GMT+02:00 Markus Demleitner <msdemlei at ari.uni-heidelberg.de
>> :
>> Dear DAL, dear DM,
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 09:51:46AM +0200, Marco Molinaro wrote:
>>> regarding this topic I have a small use case that comes from a (currently
>>> custom) set of services whose aim is to allow velocity spectra analysis
>> of
>>> galactic FITS cubes.
>> That's a perfect use case for obscore+datalink, I'd say.
>>
> sure, it can also fit a SIAv2 plus AccessData, I think.
> Honestly I'm quite puzzled on the way to go, I'll vote for providing both,
> at least on the long term,
> even if currently a related service is already a TAP one, so obscore should
> be a direct extension.
>
>
>>> a - a super-set of FITS cubes from non-homogeneous galactic surveys and
>>> pointed archives in the radio band is deployed to allow velocity spectra
>>> analysis
>>> b - the first step for the user is to search in this set for available
>> data
>>> along a line-of-sight, with possible filtering on a cone around it, or a
>>> box around it, limiting the velocity range, selecting explicitly one/more
>>> survey(s) by name, species, transition, ...
>> It seems to me most of the necessary metadata already is in obscore,
>> no?
>>
> also this is right.
>
>
>>> c - the search output (which includes something along the lines of a
>>> PublisherDID) is then used to explicitly cut the needed cube(s) to make
>>> data transfer affordable (in the near future merging of adjacent
>>> "same-survey" cubes will be also implemented)
>> And here I'd argue that's a Datalink thing.  There's just too many
>> sorts of processing one could do on data products to have any
>> hopes of describing them in a single database table, and datalink
>> lets you do exactly what you're asking for with minimal overhead on
>> both the table and the client (it will typically have to request one
>> small file per cutout, of course, but given the transfer volumes
>> we're talking about here on the data side that's neglible).
>>
> one small file for each cutout call is what current custom service does.
> I'm not saying I will not use Datalink, but I'd like to see whether that's
> the only solution.
>
>
>> Conversely, just having the pixel sizes of the cube (as in the +6
>> columns proposal) won't really help you for your use case either, and
>> even if that information could, you'd still have to have some
>> descriptor of the access service somewhere, and so you'd have to use
>> datalink either way.
>>
>>> The need for WCS information in the output of the search comes from the
>>> idea of allowing the client side to build correct cutout queries to the
>> Well, let me do a general plea here: "Keep data discovery and data
>> access separate as much as you can."  Datalink is the model to
>> efficiently perform that separation.
>>
> again, current custom service does so, but uses the same parameters to do
> both,
> it's just for logical reasons that the endpoints of the services will be
> detached, otherwise
> simple parameter discrimination between the two would do (in my case).
> You're probably right my use case is already covered from DAL point of
> view, maybe the only
> thing not spoken about a lot is the velocity axis of the cubes.
>
> [cutting...] I think I follow you, but I'm not completely convinced...could
> be my use case is not so complex
> in these terms.
>
>
>> I give you, though, that there are open issues from a practical
>> perspective.  Mine are:
>>
>> (1) certain types of queries (e.g., "give me all datasets that have a
>> certain axis type in any position") aren't really too well suited
>> for going through indices.
>>
>> (2) there might be major *discovery* use cases that require additional
>> information on the axes
>>
>> On (1), I've already written something in
>> http://mail.ivoa.net/pipermail/dm/2015-April/005150.html, which I
>> think hasn't been disputed yet.
>>
> In my case it would be finding datasets having velocity axis
> somewhere (usually it's the 3rd axis, but
> in general it shouldn't change if it's in another position).
> But I yet have to understand what to put to identify the velocity axis.
>
> On (2), I can well imagine they exist, but I'd still hope we can avoid
>> expanding obscore by 20% to satisfy those.  Let's identify them if
>> they're there, shall we?
>>
>> Let me mount the soapbox once more (I'm done in a few lines): Think
>> of our adopters.  Based on what I hear from DaCHS' users and even a
>> sizable crowd on this list, I'm convinced that additional fields in
>> DMs are being paid for in terms of takeup (not to mention that people
>> tend to put junk in fields whose purpose they don't understand).
>>
>> For the sake of takeup, please don't add fields without a strong,
>> validated use case that cannot be sanely satisfied in any other way.
>>
> I find it difficult to reply this soapbox buildup, because I found myself
> many
> times in the dilemma of using or not (also some SHOULD) fields due to lack
> of description of what was required.
>
> I understand (already said so in my previous mail) your concern on widening
> the number of table fields. I agree we should have use cases, to be sure we
> don't leave someone out and find ourselves in troubles with new revisions
> when
> they require a major one for back-compatibility issues
> (oh, god, breaking back-compatibility!).
>
> I also think we need clear guidelines if we want takeup to increase when
> resources are limited or otherwise spent.
>
> ciao
>       Marco
>


-- 
Mireille Louys	, Maître de conférences
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