This section records NIAC decisions regarding the design of NeXus. With design meaning all more general topics reagrding the layout of files, how things are done in NeXus, general rules and such.
NIAC 2003: Recommendation: use nxs extension for files nut h5, hdf, xml and others are prmitted
NIAC 2003: Physical units will be stored in accordance with the udunits utility. Dates and times will be specified in ISO8601 format.
NIAC 2003: Positions will be stored as effective (physical) positions. Motor offsets will be stored as attribute to the data.
NIAC 2007: When a scan is stored, the scan variable sould be the slowest varying variable.
NIAC 2010: offset/stride mechanism for describing data not in C storage order
NIAC 2014: By default values are readback values. If a set value is required, store it with the values name with _set appended.
NIAC 2003: Neither instrument definitions nor base classes will be subclassed
NIAC 2003: When NXdetector is included in a file, there will be a one-to-one correspondence between NXdata and NXdetector.
NIAC 2004: It is a violation of the NeXus standard to use NX in class names or fields unless authorized by NIAC
NIAC 2004: Keep a NIAC version number aligned with the cvs-ID in the the header of each base class
NIAC 2004: When linking, add a source attribute to the data item to indicate where it is linked too.
NIAC 2004: Allow dimension scales to have arbitary dimensions in order to cope with non linear coordinate schemes
NIAC 2005: Inheritance will be done in metaDTD only. This will be annotated with a tag conforms_to which contains a list of definitions this definitions also conforms too.
NIAC 2005: characterisation measurements are to referenced by linking in another complete NXentry from another file through the external linking mechanism.
NIAC 2008: ratified NXprocess for processed data. File structure plus associated groups and fields
NIAC 2010: NXsubentry was agreed upon
NIAC 2012: We allow application definitions to be flat and simple
NIAC 2012: optional fields in application definitions endorsed.
NIAC 2014: Optional fields in application definitions again ratified.
NIAC 2003: A right handed coordinate system is designed with the positive z-axis along the beam when facing downstream.
NIAC 2003: If a simplifed position is needed the entries will be polar_angle, azimuthal_angle and distance.
NIAC 2004: Allow cylindrical and polar coordinates in NXtranslation
NIAC 2004: every instrument component is to have a distance and NXgeometry group. Comment in 2015: this was decided but never implemented.
NIAC 2007: axes follow McStas conventions.
NIAC 2010: Added meridional_angle axis
NIAC 2012: accepted CIF style coordinate descriptions with depends_on fields and depends_on, vector, transformation_type etc attributes
NIAC 2014: NXgeometry marked as deprecated. CIF style coordinate descriptions are the preferred method.
NIAC 2004: Errors to a dataset will be named dataset_error. Alterntaively, the dataset can have an attribute, error_formula, which specifies how the error is calulated.
NIAC 2010: Add an uncertainties attribute to any numeric array to describe errors
NIAC 2003: Two axes schemes: via the axes attribute on the data and via the axis=n and primary=n on the dimension scales
NIAC 2003: Histograms can be specified either by having an extra element in the dimension scale or by a histogram_offset attribute on the dimension scale
NIAC 2012: Move axes and signal attribute as attributes of the enclosing group
NIAC 2014: Accepted axes and {axis}_indices group attributes for the description of axes in NXdata and other groups.