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The Data Handbook

A Guide to Understanding the Organization and Visualization of Technical Data

  • Book
  • © 1995

Overview

Authors:
  1. Brand Fortner

    1. NPG Scientific, Inc., Columbia, USA

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Table of contents (17 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxvii
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  2. Introduction

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Five Researchers and Their Data

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 3-9

  3. Numbers in Computers

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11
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    2. An Overview of Numbers in Computers

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 13-17

    3. Byte Numbers

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 19-27

    4. Integers and Fixed-Point Numbers

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 29-39

    5. Floating-Point Numbers

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 41-61

    6. ASCII Text Numbers

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 63-81

  4. The Data Universe

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 83-83
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    2. A Map of the Data Universe

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 85-95

    3. Column Data

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 97-108

    4. 2D Matrix Data

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 109-128

    5. 3D Matrix (Volumetric) Data

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 129-142

    6. Polygonal Data

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 143-152

    7. Conversions and Adding Dimensions

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 153-186

  5. Data Formats

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 187-187
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    2. Data Formats Overview

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 189-216

    3. Popular Graphics File Formats

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 217-245

    4. Popular Scientific Data Formats

      • Brand Fortner
      Pages 247-314
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Keywords

About this book

What our teachers don't tell us in school is that we will spend most of our scientific or engineering career in front of computers, trying to beat them into submission. My formal training in computational science is nil, which I suspect is true of 90 percent of the scientists and engineers in the world. In this book, I attempt to bring together in one place the very basic facts that every technical person should know about computers. The computers of today still require you to know quite a bit about them in order to use them effectively for technical data analysis. Scientists and engineers who are computer novices should read this book cover to cover (that is, in my modest opinion). Experienced computer users should use this book as a reference. There are nuggets of useful information in this book waiting to be discovered by even the most computer-literate of you. Changes in the Second Edition Numerous corrections and clarifications were made throughout the text. Thanks to all of you who sent in your comments on the first edition. In addition, the index and glossary have been greatly improved.

Reviews

"If your experiments generate a large amount of data and you want to know what scientific data formats are available to assist in the storage and visualisation of the data, then this book is for you." Australian & New Zealand Physicist
"The books real strength lies in the breadth and detail of the material covered and the simple explanations provided." - Endeavour

Authors and Affiliations

  • NPG Scientific, Inc., Columbia, USA

    Brand Fortner

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