units symbols

Arnold Rots arots at head.cfa.harvard.edu
Fri Oct 5 07:17:03 PDT 2007


I caught on to the units somewhat belatedly, but here are the unit
strings that are currently allowed in STC (XSD excerpt is appended).


Time unit strings:
  's' (second)
  'h' (hour = 3600 s)
  'd' (day = 86400 s)
  'a' or 'yr' (Julian year = 365.25 d)
  'cy' (Julian century = 36525 d)
  '' (empty, i.e., dimensionless; for ISO-8601 format)

Spatial coordinate unit strings:
  angular
    'deg' (degree)
    'rad' (radian)
    'h' (hour)
    'arcmin'
    'arcsec'
  linear
    'm' (meter)
    'km'
    'mm'
    'AU'
    'pc' (parsec)
    'kpc'
    'Mpc'
    'lyr' (lightyear)
    '' (empty, i.e., dimensionless, for unit sphere)
  three-units strings are for special 3-D vectors where the components
  do not share the same unit; one may prefer to give each component
  its own unit, instead:
    'deg deg m'
    'deg deg Mpc'
  Then there is the position angle definition (not strictly a unit):
    Position angles may be counted from North (through East),
    (positive) X (to positive Y),
    or (positive) Y (to positive X) axis
      'North'
      'X'
      'Y'
  velocity units are constructed as posUnitType / velTimeType
    the latter may be second, day, hour, year (a or yr), century,
    but not empty

Spectral units:
  frequency
    'Hz'
    'kHz'
    'MHz'
    'GHz'
  wavelength
    'm'
    'mm'
    'um' (micron)
    'nm'
    'Angstrom'
  energy
    'eV'
    'keV'
    'MeV'
    'GeV'
    'TeV'


  - Arnold

Anita M. S. Richards wrote:
[ Charset UTF-8 unsupported, converting... ]
> 
> Thanks very much Jesus,
> 
> The VOSpec model will be very useful.
> 
> Please can I ask anyone with important information or comments, especially 
> references to useful documents, to put them on the wiki page
> 
> http://www.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/UnitsDesc
> 
> thanks
> 
> Anita
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> 
> Dr. A.M.S. Richards, AstroGrid Astronomer, University of Manchester, 
> Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Turing Building, 
> University of Manchester, M13 9PL
> +44 (0)161 275 4124
> and
> MERLIN/VLBI National Facility, Jodrell Bank Observatory, 
> Cheshire SK11 9DL, U.K. +44 (0)1477 571321 (tel) 571618 (fax)
> 
> 
> On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, Jesus Salgado wrote:
> 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arnold H. Rots                                Chandra X-ray Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 67                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head.cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


  <xs:simpleType name="timeUnitType">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Time units may be second (s), hour (h: 3600 s), day (d: 86400 s), Julian year (a, yr: 365.25 d), Julian century (cy: 36525 d), or empty (i.e., dimensionless) for ISO-8601 format</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:restriction base="unitType">
      <xs:enumeration value="s"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="h"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="d"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="a"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="yr"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="cy"/>
      <xs:enumeration value=""/>
    </xs:restriction>
  </xs:simpleType>
  <xs:simpleType name="posUnitType">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Spatial coordinate units may be angular (degrees, radians, hours, arcmins, arcsecs), linear (meters, km, mm, AUs, parsecs, kpc, Mpc, lightyears), or empty (i.e., dimensionless).  The three-units strings are for special 3-D vectors where the components do not share the same unit; one may prefer to give each component its own unit, instead.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:restriction base="unitType">
      <xs:enumeration value="deg"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="deg deg m"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="deg deg Mpc"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="rad"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="h"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="arcmin"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="arcsec"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="m"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="km"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="mm"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="AU"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="pc"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="kpc"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="Mpc"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="lyr"/>
      <xs:enumeration value=""/>
    </xs:restriction>
  </xs:simpleType>
  <xs:simpleType name="angleUnitType">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Angular coordinate units may be degrees, radians, hours, arcmins, arcsecs</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:restriction base="unitType">
      <xs:enumeration value="deg"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="rad"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="h"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="arcmin"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="arcsec"/>
    </xs:restriction>
  </xs:simpleType>
  <xs:simpleType name="posAngleReferenceType">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Position angles may be counted from North (through East), (positive) X (to positive Y), or (positive) Y (to positive X) axis</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:restriction base="xs:string">
      <xs:enumeration value="North"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="X"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="Y"/>
    </xs:restriction>
  </xs:simpleType>
  <xs:simpleType name="velTimeUnitType">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Velocity units are a posUnitType / velTimeType; the latter may be second, day, hour, year (a or yr), century, but not empty</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:restriction base="unitType">
      <xs:enumeration value="s"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="h"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="d"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="a"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="yr"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="cy"/>
    </xs:restriction>
  </xs:simpleType>
  <xs:simpleType name="spectralUnitType">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Spectral units may be frequency (Hz, kHz, MHz, GHz), wavelength (meters, mm, micron, nm, Angstrom), or energy (eV, keV, MeV, GeV, TeV)</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:restriction base="unitType">
      <xs:enumeration value="Hz"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="kHz"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="MHz"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="GHz"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="m"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="mm"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="um"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="nm"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="Angstrom"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="eV"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="keV"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="MeV"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="GeV"/>
      <xs:enumeration value="TeV"/>
    </xs:restriction>
  </xs:simpleType>



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