other file formats and data models for annotated arrays

[neuromusic]

In your landscaping, it might be worth calling out other file formats for annotated arrays. Building a schema on top of these standards could facilitate interoperability.

• netCDF (R, Python, C++, Java, others)
• zarr (Python)
• xarray (Python)
• tile.db (C++, Python, others)

[ivirshup]

Yup, a few of these had come up in previous discussion with @LTLA. The idea of Arrow/ Parquet had also come up.

I like the idea of xarray/ netCDF for the existing infrastructure, though it's unclear to me what the status is of sparse data for netCDF. There has been a little discussion of this on the xarray sparse issue (pydata/xarray#1375).