175-WP-001-002 An HDF-EOS and Data Formatting Primer for the ECS Project White Paper March 2001 Prepared Under Contract NAS5-60000 RESPONSIBLE ENGINEER E. M. Taaheri /s/ 3-1-2001 David Wynne, Abe Taaheri Date EOSDIS Core System Project SUBMITTED BY Larry Klein /s/ 2-28-2001 Darryl Arrington, Manager Toolkit Date Larry Klein, Manager Toolkit EOSDIS Core System Project Raytheon Company Upper Marlboro, Maryland This page intentionally left blank. Abstract This document is a release of a primer manual for using the Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) and extensions (HDF-EOS) in Earth Observing System (EOS), Version 1 and later. We confine our discussion in this document to HDF V4 and the versions of HDF-EOS (V2), which are based on that version of HDF. A new version of HDF (V5) has been released. Additional material for HDF5 and versions of HDF-EOS, based on HDF5 will be provided in a separate document. Comments and suggestions should be sent to: Larry Klein Emergent Information Technologies 9315 Largo Dr. West, Suite 250 Largo, MD 20774 USA Email:
[email protected] Phone: (301) 925-0764 Fax: (301) 925-0321 Keywords: HDF, HDF-EOS, Swath, Grid, Point, Data Formats, Metadata, Standard Data Products, Disk Formats, Browse iii 175-WP-001-002 This page intentionally left blank. iv 175-WP-001-002 Table of Contents Abstract 1. Introduction 1.1 Purpose of this Document.......................................................................................... 1-1 1.2 Organization of this Document .................................................................................. 1-1 1.3 HDF and EOS: Introduction ...................................................................................... 1-1 1.4 HDF and EOS: General Philosophy........................................................................... 1-3 2.