Posted May 17, 2005 revised November 20, 2013 (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: 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)) * 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/software.shtml IMAGE UDF Software Installation Installation http://image.msfc.nasa.gov/ChrisDocs/UDFInstall/TC.html Documentation http://image.msfc.nasa.gov/ChrisDocs/Index.html Among these software is the DLM file needed to read UDFs from IDL 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 IMAGE/FUV (fuview IDL program) From the FUV page at http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/image/ Download http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/sprite/ago96/image/wic_summary/fuview3/ and Documentation http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/%7Eimmel/fuview.html UDF Data Besides the UDF data held here at the SPDF, there is also an archive at the SwRI http://guinan.space.swri.edu/IMAGE/ VIDF and PIDF files The UDF software dBAsk can retrieve UDF PIDF and VIDF files from servers hosting these data.