Format

The preferred Format for data tables is TAB-delimited TEXT-files (UTF-8), or Excel files. The focus is on tabulated field observations, which are presented in a relational database (PostgreSQL). Tables formats are not accepted a binary objects (e.g., .mat)

Example: https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.934148

Binary objects and documentations are stored in a tape archive. File formats should follow ISO standards or at least de facto standards. Online preview is available for raster graphics and videos (e.g. .tif, .png, .jpeg, .mp4).

Example: https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.936185

Documentation

• PDF/A (ISO19005) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A
• ODF (ISO26300) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
• or just plain UTF-8 text - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8
• MS Office files - standard OOXML (ISO/IEC 29500:2008 since Office 2013 - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office, e.g. .xlsx for Excel files

Images

• tiff
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagged_Image_File_Format
  • ISO12639:1998
• jpeg
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpeg
  • ISO10918-1:1994
• png
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics
  • ISO/IEC 15948:2004

Video

see: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Video

• MPG Container
  • MP3
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
    • ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004?
  • MPEG2 (for PAL)
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_2
    • ISO/IEC 13818-11:2004
      • Software VLC media player
        

• MP4 Container
  • AAC
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding
    • ISO/IEC 13818-7:2006
  • MPEG-4 (for HDTV)
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4
    • ISO/IEC 14496

Audio

• MP3
• WAVE (WAV)
  • description http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV
  • example doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.339110

Seismic

• segy

ADCP

• proprietary binary ping-format, archived on hs, linked to metadescription in PANGAEA
  • ping: http://currents.soest.hawaii.edu/docs/doc/codas_doc/CODAS_pingdemo.html
• final processed data in UTF-8, archived in data numeric of PANGAEA (file size 100-500 MB!)
  • Example doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.701279

Large array-oriented, scientific data (no models!)

• Network Common Data Form (NetCDF),
  • description http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetCDF
  • Unidata/NSF http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/
  • example https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.940846
  • viewer panoply http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/

Compression

• zip is ISO-standard (tar and 7z are NOT standard)

Proprietary formats

Include a reference, preferably with a DOI, to open source software (e.g. at GitHub, pypi.org) that can be used to open such files.