[Neutron] Enhancing the sharing and re-use of small-angle scattering data: NXcanSAS

[Pete Jemian]

The drive to more complex SAS experiments, larger data volumes, and 
requirements for open data and data repositories calls for standardised, 
community-based approaches to data interchange. Enabling automated, 
traceable, data processing analysis workflows requires rich metadata to 
enhance the usability of the scattering data itself.

Advancing these aims, and building on shared community experience, 
canSAS (www.cansas.org) are pleased to announce the next generation 
small-angle scattering reduced data storage format: NXcanSAS.

The format, employing NeXus structured HDF5 files, allows for the 
storage of reduced small-angle scattering data of multiple dimension. 
Supporting a wide range of metadata, and a flexible description of both 
uncertainties and resolution information, the format is user-extensible 
and capable of storing data from any small-angle scattering beamline.

NXcanSAS is implemented fully in Mantid, DAWN, and SasView.  Software 
using HDF5 libraries can read and write NXcanSAS.

Read more about canSAS activities at http://www.cansas.org

The technical specification for NXcanSAS can be found at: 
http://download.nexusformat.org/doc/html/classes/applications/NXcanSAS.html

For more information, contact: Pete Jemian <jemian at anl.gov>

Acknowledgements

   canSAS Data Formats Working Group

     Pete Jemian (APS)
     Andrew Jackson (ESS)
     Tobias Richter (ESS)
     Paul Butler (NIST)
     Steve King (STFC)
     Adrian Rennie (Uppsala Univ.)
     Brian Pauw (BAM)
     Ron Ghosh (ILL)

This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy,
Office of Science, under Contract No. DE-AC-02-06CH11357.