Re: quantity database

• To: visad-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: Re: quantity database
• From: Steve Emmerson <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:38:16 -0600

Tom,

>Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 19:16:20 CDT 
>From: Tom Whittaker <tomw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Steve Emmerson)
>Subject: Re: quantity database 

In the above message, you wrote:

> OK, so maybe I'm issing something, but the other part of my message
> dealt with the notion of standard 'names', and why that is an important
> issue.  I believe it's important for VisAD as well -- if I write code
> to work with, say, temperature and pressure, where will the translation
> take place between the "names" that I use in the program and the
> "names" that someone put into a database?    I would hope that the
> software would not have to be changed everytime I aimed it at a netCDF
> file with a different "name" for temperature...  Am i missing
> something, worrying about this connection to the databases?  

I envision a standard set of quantities (where a "quantity" is a
name/MathType pair) that would come with VisAD.  This is what I'm
currently working on.  We'll also need a mechanism for customizing the
quantities for specific disciplines and even user sessions.

--------
Steve Emmerson   <http://www.unidata.ucar.edu>