3D data model

[Nicholas Walton]

Dear Francois,

I strongly support your concerns as to excessive fragmentation of and
within the working groups.

In terms of creation of a new working group, there is a clear process,
whereby a case is made and proposal brought forward to the IVOA Exec who
recommend or otherwise the creation of that new group. Thus, the process
recently was followed and led to the creation of the VOEvent working
group.

In terms of fragmentation within a group, i think that we should try to
avoid creating un-necessary 'de-facto' mini-working groups, which may have
the unfortunate outcome, that we end up with a proliferation of differing
'standards' addressing rather similar problems.

Perhaps at the Kyoto meeting, the DAL and DM groups could carefully assess
their current subgroups, to ensure that they are all functioning well
within the wider DM and DAL WG's.

Yours, Nic

========================================================================
Dr N. A. Walton
(AstroGrid Project Scientist	       http://www.astrogrid.org)
(Euro-VO VOTC Project Scientist	       http://www.euro-vo.org)
Institute of Astronomy          Tel:   +44 1223 337503
University of Cambridge         Fax:   +44 1223 337523
Madingley Road                  WWW:   http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~naw
Cambridge, CB3 0HA              email: naw at ast.cam.ac.uk
========================================================================


On Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Francois Bonnarel wrote:

> Doug, Igor, Philippe, Giovanni,
>    Sorry to have given you maybe the impression to be a little bit "chilly".
> I basically agree with what you say, Doug.
>    My main concern was about keeping a consistency in the work of the DM
> group. If "Characterization" is to be seen as some sort of federator DM
> for Observations and Datasets, we absolutly need that newcomers from the IFU
> community to have a look to the work done in Characterization.
>    So , definitly I am really happy that we discuss these topics in the group
> before and in Kyoto, and we get specialists (were they Euro3D consortiums
> participants or not) coming in for that.
>
>     What I am only reluctant to  is to create a  new DM Subgroup each time
> a new point of view is coming in.
>     Just to recall we allready have the following subgroups (or specific
> data models efforts) in the DM Working group:
>     Quantity
>     STC
>     SED/spectrum
>     Characterization (and previously Observation)
>     And since a couple of monthes: Catalog.
> In addition  the "Radio" effort was always done in close connection to
> Observation Characterization, as a kind of specialisation of it.
>     The SED/spectrum was considered to be urgent enough to be separated
> from a more general and slower effort on Characterization/Observation .
>      I am just afraid that adding new subgroups will make the whole
> Working group unmanageable and I would really like to have Jonathan's
> advice about that.
>      Do we really need a new one , or can we have the 3D input in the
> existing ones (basically SED/pectrum and Characterization?)
>
>    Cheers
> François
>
> PS: Euro3D is an European effort to federate IFU and other 3D spectroscopy
> communities. Among other things they defined a new FITS format for 3D data
> and they were really missing in the IVOA discussion. So I think it's really
> good news, if Giovanni and others can participate.
>  See http://www.aip.de/Euro3D/
>
>
>   In addition  the "Radio" effort was always done in close connection to
> Observation Characterization, as a kind of specialisation of it.
>     The SED/spectrum was considered to be urgent enough to be separated
> from a more general and slower effort on Characterization/Observation .
>      I am just afraid that adding new subgroups will make the whole
> Working group unmanageable and I would really like to have Jonathan's
> advice about that.
>      Do we really need a new one , or can we have the 3D input in the
> existing ones (basically SED/pectrum and Characterization?)
>
>    Cheers
> Fran\347ois
>
> PS: Euro3D is an European effort to federate IFU and other 3D spectroscopy
> communities. Among other things they defined a new FITS format for 3D data
> and they were really missing in the IVOA discussion. So I think it's really
> good news, if Giovanni and others can participate.
>  See http://www.aip.de/Euro3D/
>
> =====================================================================
> Francois   Bonnarel               Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
> CDS (Centre de donnees          11, rue de l'Universite
> astronomiques de Strasbourg)    F--67000 Strasbourg (France)
>
> Tel: +33-(0)3 90 24 24 11       WWW: http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/people/fb.html
> Fax: +33-(0)3 90 24 24 25       E-mail: bonnarel at astro.u-strasbg.fr
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>