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#95: Development of CF 1.5 Data Model
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  Reporter:  markh           |       Owner:  [email protected]
      Type:  task            |      Status:  new                          
  Priority:  medium          |   Milestone:                               
 Component:  cf-conventions  |     Version:                               
Resolution:                  |    Keywords:                               
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Comment (by markh):

 Replying to [comment:41 mgschultz]:
 > Dear all,
 >
 > can't this issue be resolved simply by stating explicitly that the
 relation between the field and the domain axes depends on the software
 that is used to implement the data model? It seems that we all agree that
 there is and must be a "photo id". How this id is established (via a
 person at passport control or some automated scanner) is up to the
 implementation.
 >
 > Cheers,
 >
 > Martin

 Hello Martin

 I think you may well be right, that we need to agree at such a level of
 detail.

 I seem to be struggling to illustrate my concerns effectively.

 I think the domain_axis and coordinate model works very nicely for points
 arrays > length 1.

 All my concern is around coordiantes of length one and preserving the
 flexibility of interpretation of these.

 I work with a lot of data stored as 2D datasets which I aggregate based on
 metadata.  How these datasets aggregate is interpreted by the metadata,
 the 'shape', 'ordering' etc emerges from the collection of 2D Fields.

 I want the ability to add a single valued coordiante to my Field without
 defining a domain_axis at any time.

 Additionally I want the ability to evaluate two or more Fields with single
 valued coordinates, establish that they share coordinate definitions and
 that the values are different.  At this point I will create a new
 domain_axis on one Field, a new data dimension, and bind my new two-valued
 coordinate to this data dimension, aggregating my two Fields into one.

 By stating that the domain_axes are all defined by the Field, even if some
 of them are not evident as data dimensions, I feel I have lost this
 ability to see domain_axes emerge from my data as I aggregate.

 This has driven my suggestions to treat domain_axes not bound to data
 dimensions differently from bound domain_axes.

 May I have some assurance that the principal of what I am doing is
 consistent with interpretations of the design intent and that we are not
 mandating that 'all domain axes must be declared up front'?

 I do not think we should giving the impression of limiting the degrees of
 freedom of our Fields in this way.

 The [http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-conventions/1.6/cf-
 conventions.html#scalar-coordinate-variables flexibilty that CF NetCDF
 provides for size one coordiantes] is a really useful feature that I am
 worried we are desiging away in the model.

 Perhaps Martin's suggestion of a simpler, less prescriptive wording allows
 us to preserve this behaviour.

 mark

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/95#comment:42>
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