Crystallography Online: the website of the International Union of Crystallography

Hello everyone,

My name is Justin Anderson with Rayonix (formerly MarUSA).  I have been 
given the task of adding CBF format support to the marccd program.  I 
was hoping you could help me with a few questions that have arisen.  I 
truly appreciate it.

Now for the questions...

1)  Are miniCBF files meant to be read by imaging programs such as 
marccd or are they expected to be converted to full CBF format first?

2)  What is the minimum set of fields that is necessary for an official 
miniCBF and CBF file?  In the "Simple Example Header" in section 2 of 
the Draft Format 
(http://www.iucr.org/iucr-top/cif/cbf/cbf_definition.html) it does 
mention at one point that "the above" data items are optional.  Does 
that imply that the items below are required?

3)  Some items can exist in both the header area and the MIME area.  One 
such example is the image size (e.g. fastest and second-fastest number 
of pixels).  When reading a CBF file, should I expect to get that 
information from the MIME, the CBF header area or would it be found in both?

I appreciate any help you can give me.



Justin Anderson                    Rayonix, LLC (Formerly Mar USA)
Software Engineer                  justin at rayonix.com
1880 Oak Ave. Ste. 120             Evanston, IL, USA 60201
877.627.9729                       847.869.1548