Design goals

• open data format for open science projects

• self describing data

• flexible data structure layout

  • hierarchical data structure (nesting groups, dictionaries)

  • (posix path syntax support?)

• extendable data structure

• platform independent

• simple object model

• support of standard metadata formats (key/value, …)

• support of standard dataset formats (hdf5, netcdf, csv, …)

• support of standard dataset types (datacubes, tables, series, …)

• support of physical units (conversion of units)

• transparent, optional data compression (zlib, blosc, …)

• support of (de-)serialization of every dataset type (group, data, metadata)

• easy defineable (project) standards, e.g. for a uniaxial tension test (UT)

• (optional data encryption (gpg, …))

• change management support?

• Enable use of data structures from existing tensor libraries transparently

• (single writer/ multiple reader (swmr) support)

• (nested table support)