[NeXus-tech] NeXus Telco Week 12 Summary

[Mark Könnecke]

===========================
NeXus Telco Week 12 2014
===========================

NOBUGS and NIAC
=============

The first topic was when to hold the next NIAC meeting. 
NOBUGS is September, 24-26. It is directly followed by the ICANS
meeting which some people might want to attend. Thus it was 
decided to ask for NIAC to be before NOBUGS. It was also 
decided to hold a code camp. Thus we will ask the 
local organisers for:
* NeXus code camp: September, 20-21
* NIAC Meeting: September, 22-23

We will also ask for good internet connectivity in order to allow
people to attend elctronically.

To be confirmed by the local organizing committee.
 

NXformula
==========

We also discussed NXformula which caused considerable traffic on the 
email list recently.  According to Herbert people come up with all
sorts of requirements for data correction schemes in the PX community
in order to cope with the data rates of modern detectors. Thus merely
copying the CBF scheme is not good enough. 

Herbert also stated that the required transformation must be
documented and that any implementations are a different thing. 

We arrived at a consensus (may be only a temporary one) to use Ben
Watts description with muParser syntax:

 - NXformula
      * formula A = b*c
      * A --> link to some stuff
      * b --> link to some stuff
      * c = 27.8
This is documentation only and we just borrow muParsers syntax but not
necessarily the implementation.

We briefly discussed to use python syntax but then the question is
which python:
* python 2.x
* python 3.x
* python, future version
* python with scipy installed

A working group will be formed, probably at the NeXus code camp, to
look into an implementation.


NXPX
======

Some news from the ongoing project to arrive at an application
definition for PX for NeXus.

* Our current proposal was forwarded to DECTRIS. They seem to like
  it. We are waiting for more detailed feedback.
* Graeme had several datasets both in CBF and converted to NeXus in
  our new application definition. He was able to process both CBF and
  NeXus datasets yielding the same results. This is very good news:
  
  - Our application definition works. All necessary data is there.
  - There is a soon to be released PX software which can process PX
    NeXus files 

* As an added note: with a  very sparse dataset NeXus shrank the data
  file size from 45GB in CBF to 5GB, compressed NeXus 
* We aggreed to thank Jonathan Sloan for all the help he gave for
  making this work


Next Telco
==========

The plan is to have the next NeXus teleconference on April, 2. 
Pending confirmation by ORNL.