[Nexus] COMCIF NeXus Meeting report

[Mark Koennecke]

Report on the Joint NeXus COMCIFS Meeting
============================================


Introduction
--------------

Before the ECM meeting 2013 at Warwick University there was
a meeting between representatives from COMCIFS, the working group
which oversees the CIF data format, and representatives of the
NIAC. The purpose of this meeting was to find out how NeXus and CIF
can learn from each other and how they can interoperate better.
This meeting took place at Warwick university on Thursday,
August 22, 2013. NeXus was represented by Tobias Richter, Ben Watts,
Freddie Akeroyd, Eugen Wintersberger, Herbert Bernstein and
Mark Koennecke. COMCIFS was represented by James Hesters, Brian McMahon,
John Westbrook, Brian Toby, Jonathan Sloan and Herbert Bernstein.

Meeting Agenda
-----------------

The meeting agenda was pretty informal:
# First COMCIFS representatives gave an overview of CIF
# Mark Koennecke gave an introduction to NeXus/HDF5
# A discussion about how NeXus and CIF can collaborate


Meeting Results
------------------

The atmosphere at the meeting was quite open and friendly. There was an 
understanding
that the new generation of X-ray detectors generate big data. And that 
big data
requires HDF5. COMCIFS appeared to be happy to let facilities store raw 
data
in NeXus/HDF5. Brian McMahon pointed out that the acronym CIF really 
stands for
Crystallographic Information Framework which leaves room to have 
different data
formats for different purposes.

In terms of a collaboration between COMCIFS and NeXus it was agreed to 
leave
CIF be CIF and NeXus be NeXus for the time being. The collaboration 
between COMCIF
and  NeXus will take two main directions: we will continue the work 
started by
Herbert Bernstein et al to create a mapping between CIF/CBF and NeXus. The
other direction is to develop crystallography related NeXus application 
definitions
together with COMCIF. The start will be an application definition for 
protein
crystallography. However there is potential to codevelop application 
definitions
for a whole slew of techniques. It was agreed to have a joint COMCIFS/NIAC
teleconference in three months time in order to review progress and to 
coordinate.

Many Thanks to Brain McMahon for organising this meeting