From jwright@amadeus.ucsf.edu Thu Apr 11 14:57:38 1996 Received: from localhost by amadeus.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA31869 for purvis@phy.ucsf.EDU; Thu, 11 Apr 1996 14:57:38 -0700 Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 14:57:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Jim Wright To: spiffers@amadeus.ucsf.edu Subject: spiffers Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII you can send mail regarding the spiff project to "spiffers@phy.ucsf.edu". initially, everyone at today's meeting is on the list. Jim From fet Wed Apr 17 17:19:37 1996 Received: from localhost by benny.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA02668 for purvis@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 17 Apr 1996 17:19:37 -0700 Message-Id: <9604180019.AA02668@benny.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: Doupe lab file format. Date: Wed, 17 Apr 96 17:19:36 -0700 From: fet X-Mts: smtp Jim Wright has 5 paper copies of a short document on the format of the data files in the Doupe Lab. Frederic. From kvale Wed Apr 17 17:26:59 1996 Received: from localhost by louis.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA10988 for purvis@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 17 Apr 1996 17:26:59 -0700 Message-Id: <9604180026.AA10988@louis.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: uploaded docs Date: Wed, 17 Apr 96 17:26:59 -0700 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp Hello spiffers - I have uploaded the electronic form of the proposal I handed out last Thursday, as well as a few documents relating to the XDR machine-independent format, to the archive. -Mark From jwright@amadeus.ucsf.edu Wed Apr 17 18:28:47 1996 Received: from localhost by amadeus.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA24398 for purvis@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 17 Apr 1996 18:28:47 -0700 Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 18:28:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Jim Wright To: spiffers@amadeus.ucsf.edu Subject: online information for spiff project Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII you can find information regarding the spiff project online. from the keck home page, select "Projects in the Keck and Sloan Centers" and then "SPIFF". or go straight to http://keck.ucsf.edu/projects/spiff/ contributions welcome. Jim From sgl Wed Apr 17 22:19:52 1996 Received: by keck.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) id AA12100 for purvis@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 17 Apr 1996 22:19:52 -0700 Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 22:19:52 -0700 From: sgl (Stephen G Lisberger) Message-Id: <9604180519.AA12100@keck.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: meeting reminder Noon Thursday in the Keck Conference Room. Steve From sgl Fri Apr 19 14:51:11 1996 Received: from localhost by satchmo.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA06135 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Fri, 19 Apr 1996 14:51:11 -0700 Message-Id: <9604192151.AA06135@satchmo.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: Lisberger data format Date: Fri, 19 Apr 96 14:51:11 -0700 From: sgl X-Mts: smtp Is now available in /projects/spiff/sgl using Netscape Steve From rebrik@mccoy.ucsf.edu Wed Apr 24 02:38:51 1996 Received: from mccoy.ucsf.edu by phy.ucsf.edu (5.65/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA01348 for ben; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 02:38:51 -0700 Message-Id: <9604240938.AA01348@phy.ucsf.edu> Received: from mccoy (128.218.66.162) by mccoy.ucsf.EDU (EMWAC SMTPRS 0.50) with SMTP id ; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 02:38:19 -0700 X-Sender: rebrik@mccoy.UCSF.EDU X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.1.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 02:38:18 -0700 To: spiffers@phy.ucsf.edu From: Sergei Rebrik Subject: uploaded docs Hi spiffers, You can have a look at my suggestions regarding SPIFF format in my spiff subdirectory. Sergei Sergei Rebrik From sgl Wed Apr 24 16:10:58 1996 Received: from localhost by satchmo.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA21241 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 16:10:58 -0700 Message-Id: <9604242310.AA21241@satchmo.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: meeting tomorrow Date: Wed, 24 Apr 96 16:10:58 -0700 From: sgl X-Mts: smtp 11 AM- 1 PM in the Keck Center conference room. See you then. Steve From sgl Thu May 2 07:33:49 1996 Received: from localhost by satchmo.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA26050 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Thu, 2 May 1996 07:33:49 -0700 Message-Id: <9605021433.AA26050@satchmo.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: meeting today Date: Thu, 02 May 96 07:33:49 -0700 From: sgl X-Mts: smtp 11 AM to noon. Steve From kvale Fri May 3 15:29:03 1996 Received: from localhost by louis.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA04905 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Fri, 3 May 1996 15:29:03 -0700 Message-Id: <9605032229.AA04905@louis.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: Upload Date: Fri, 03 May 96 15:29:02 -0700 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp I've uploaded a revised version my earlier proposal to the spiffers' archive. Following the good suggestions which arose in the group, I've made several changes which allow streaming capability: - fixed-length headers on all the chunks - the option of marking size and index information as unknown - interleaving of the nultichannel blocks. -Mark From sgl Thu May 9 07:27:09 1996 Received: from localhost by satchmo.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA13074 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Thu, 9 May 1996 07:27:09 -0700 Message-Id: <9605091427.AA13074@satchmo.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: meeting today Date: Thu, 09 May 96 07:27:09 -0700 From: sgl X-Mts: smtp noon in the conference room. Steve From sgl Wed May 15 22:39:35 1996 Received: by keck.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) id AA28640 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 15 May 1996 22:39:35 -0700 Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 22:39:35 -0700 From: sgl (Stephen G Lisberger) Message-Id: <9605160539.AA28640@keck.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: meeting cancelled due to conflict with lunch for Jim. Steve From kvale Thu May 23 08:01:10 1996 Received: from localhost by louis.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA12513 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Thu, 23 May 1996 08:01:10 -0700 Message-Id: <9605231501.AA12513@louis.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: Meeting Date: Thu, 23 May 96 08:01:09 -0700 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp Steve is away today, so the spiffers' meeting is postponed until next Thursday, at Steve's suggested time of 11-12. Sergei and I have discussed our different proposals. At first glance, they seemed widely different, but in fact had many similarities. We seem to agree on many points, but have some differences that we feel strongly about. We would like to discuss these issues with the group at large. See you there, Mark From sgl Wed May 29 17:45:39 1996 Received: from localhost by satchmo.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA28818 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 29 May 1996 17:45:39 -0700 Message-Id: <9605300045.AA28818@satchmo.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: meeting thursday? Date: Wed, 29 May 96 17:45:39 -0700 From: sgl X-Mts: smtp Mark and Sergie are apparently ready to report to us and let us help them resolve their differences. Can we meet at noon on Thursday (tomorrow)? Keck Center conference room. Steve From sgl Fri May 31 16:32:43 1996 Received: from localhost by satchmo.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA02136 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Fri, 31 May 1996 16:32:43 -0700 Message-Id: <9605312332.AA02136@satchmo.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: Sergei vs. Mark Date: Fri, 31 May 96 16:32:43 -0700 From: sgl X-Mts: smtp And the winner is ... Mark S From kvale Wed Jun 12 18:03:26 1996 Received: from localhost by louis.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA04197 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 12 Jun 1996 18:03:26 -0700 Message-Id: <9606130103.AA04197@louis.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: Next meeting Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 18:03:25 -0700 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp We will have the next SPIFF meeting Thursday the 20th at 12noon. We are now moving into the next stage, that of specifying which block types we want to have initially and what data goes into them. One approach is to look at the blocks in my proposal and decide what you like and what you think should be changed, especially in light of the lab format docs put out by Steve, Frederic, Sergei and Purvis. I ran this by Steve and he said ok, so bring your ideas next Thursday! -Mark From sgl Wed Jun 19 09:12:27 1996 Received: from localhost by satchmo.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA22148 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 09:12:27 -0700 Message-Id: <9606191612.AA22148@satchmo.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: meeting thursday Date: Wed, 19 Jun 96 09:12:27 -0700 From: sgl X-Mts: smtp I think we should meet at noon on Thursday in the Keck Center conference room to see if we can finalize the SPIFF format. It might be worthwhile to peruse spiff3 in Mark's archive in preparation for this meeting. Steve From kvale Thu Jun 20 15:40:29 1996 Received: from localhost by louis.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA29828 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Thu, 20 Jun 1996 15:40:29 -0700 Message-Id: <9606202240.AA29828@louis.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: Final format review! Date: Thu, 20 Jun 96 15:40:29 -0700 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp Hello Spiffers - we are in the home stretch. Next week, we will make final revisions to the SPIFF file format. There were no criticisms concerning my proposal brought up at the meeting today, but I know that it is not _that_ good! So that you don't have to slog through a 20 page propsoal, I've created a digest version of the file format. It is contained in the file "spif_bnf.ps" and has been uploaded to the SPIFF repository. The digest actually has changes relative to the spiff3 document, and should be considered the latest version. I've also created some perl programs which read and write the format as it stands. They are largely untested and don't do everything yet, but they show one approach to implementing the format. If you don't know perl, relax, it look like a cross between shell and C. The programs will be uploaded to the repository by tomorrow. In the long run, we want to have a nice set of C functions in a SPIFF library that anyone can include in their programs, but for now, you might enjoy hacking on these. See you Thursday -Mark From sgl Thu Jun 27 07:43:40 1996 Received: from localhost by satchmo.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA04994 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 07:43:40 -0700 Message-Id: <9606271443.AA04994@satchmo.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: meeting today Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 07:43:40 -0700 From: sgl X-Mts: smtp to iron on details in the SPIFF format. Noon in the Keck Center conference room. Steve From kvale Thu Jun 27 18:46:18 1996 Received: from localhost by louis.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA01475 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 18:46:18 -0700 Message-Id: <9606280146.AA01475@louis.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: SPIFF proposal Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 18:46:18 -0700 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp I have updated the proposal and put it into our SPIFF repository. An appendix includes the format in BNF notation, suitable for programming. Unless there are any last minute suggestions, this is the format we will start to code up. When we get this coded and Gaylord produces a nice SPIFF API and library, I would like to tell others in the neural data format field about our work; perhaps it would be useful beyond Keck. So if you find anything in the proposal to be unclear, ambiguous, or just plain wrong, let me know and we will fix it. The perl prototypes I created last week have not been updated yet, hopefully soon... -Mark From jdm@pairgain.com Fri Jul 12 10:57:57 1996 Received: from howie.pairgain.com by phy.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA01739 for ben; Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:57:57 -0700 Received: from pggate.pairgain.com by howie.pairgain.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA19987; Fri, 12 Jul 96 10:55:03 PDT Received: from jdm.pairgain.com by pggate.pairgain.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA07998; Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:55:03 -0700 Message-Id: <31E69107.7CC@pairgain.com> Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:53:11 -0700 From: "James D. Murray" Organization: PairGain Technologies X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win95; I) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: spiffers@phy.ucsf.edu Subject: SPIFF name already taken X-Url: http://keck.ucsf.edu/projects/spiff/ Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings all: I was wondering if you knew that the official JPEG file format is also named "SPIFF" (Still Picture Interchange File Format). Have a look at the July 1996 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal for more info on SPIFF. -- James D. Murray Maintainer of the Graphics File Formats FAQ jdm@ora.com From kvale Fri Jul 12 11:54:19 1996 Received: from localhost by louis.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA22465 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:54:19 -0700 Message-Id: <9607121854.AA22465@louis.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: SPIFF (TM) stuff Date: Fri, 12 Jul 96 11:54:19 -0700 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp Hi Spiffers - 1) I replied to the fellow who mailed us (and who probably got our name through an Alta Vista search), and told hime we would think about the name collision and keep him posted. Personally, I think that the number of people confused by this is a subset of an already small number of people who deal with both JPEG files and neural traces at a low level. With 25 million Web pages and counting, incompatible acronyms are a way of life. So short of legal action, I'd recommend keeping SPIFF. 2) I talked to Michael Stryker this morning and was surprised to find that he wasn't aware of our SPIFF meetings, or that we have produced a working document. He is apparently very interested in it and said that he was one of people pushing for this a while ago; he had given Jim materials relating to a possible spec back then. I gave him a copy of our spec and asked for his comments. If he has suggested revisions, then perhaps we should have another meeting? -Mark From holder Wed Aug 28 09:33:17 1996 Received: by amadeus.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) id AA13337 for ben@phy.ucsf.EDU; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 09:33:17 -0700 Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 09:33:17 -0700 From: holder (Gaylord Holder) Message-Id: <9608281633.AA13337@amadeus.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers In-Reply-To: <322469E1.7DE1@phy.ucsf.edu> (message from Purvis Bedenbaugh on Wed, 28 Aug 1996 08:46:41 -0700) Subject: Re: multiple name spaces Cc: Could someone point me to some background design papers for the spiff format? I don't know what SChreiner DPS format is, or what considertations were given to the current spiff design. Thanks, -Gaylord From purvis@phy.ucsf.edu Tue Sep 10 18:12:46 1996 Received: from keck65.ucsf.edu by phy.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA12681 for ken; Tue, 10 Sep 1996 18:12:46 -0700 Sender: purvis Message-Id: <3236120B.FF6@phy.ucsf.edu> Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 18:12:43 -0700 From: Purvis Bedenbaugh Organization: UCSF Otolaryngology/Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (X11; I; OSF1 V3.2 alpha) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: Mark Kvale Cc: spiffers@phy.ucsf.edu Subject: Re: About time-stamps and floats References: <9609101745.AA13060@louis.ucsf.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think Mark and I have the same definition of custom float. Here are my perl functions for converting to/from custom float. -purvis. ################################################################ sub perl_to_custom_float { my($fval) = @_; # converts the its argument to a SPIFF custom float # returns a packed string # mantissa is signed integer, so log of the max value of ln(mantissa) is about 21 # max value of log10(mantissa) is a little over 9 # -- that is, 9 digits precision -- my($strval, $mantissa, $exponent, $retval); $strval = sprintf "%-+#.8e", $fval; # format is: always + or -, 8 digits past # the decimal point, e, power of 10. $mantissa = $strval; # the float as a string in +x.xxxxxxxxe+xxx format $mantissa =~ s/\.//g; # get rid of the decimal point, implicit multiplication by 10^8 $mantissa =~ s/e.*//g; # get rid of the exponent $exponent = $strval; # the float as a string in x.xxxxxxxxe+xxx format $exponent =~ s/^.{12}//; # get rid of the first 12 characters $exponent = $exponent - 8; # adjust the exponent for the removal of the decimal point # print STDERR "converting $fval ($strval) to custom float ($mantissa, $exponent)\n"; $retval = pack "is", ($mantissa, $exponent); } #end sub perl_to_custom_float sub custom_float_to_perl { my($packed_float) = @_; # converts SPIFF custom float stored as a character string to a perl double my($mantissa, $exponent, $retval); ($mantissa, $exponent) = unpack "is", $packed_float; $retval = $mantissa * 10.0 ** $exponent; return($retval); } #end sub custom_float_to_perl From kvale Thu Sep 19 08:00:06 1996 Received: from localhost by louis.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA10043 for ken@phy.ucsf.EDU; Thu, 19 Sep 1996 08:00:06 -0700 Message-Id: <9609191500.AA10043@louis.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Cc: stryker Subject: Meeting Date: Thu, 19 Sep 96 08:00:06 -0700 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp Hello spiffers - we will have a meeting at 2pm, Monday Sep 23 in the Keck conference room. On the agenda (at least from my point of view) are 1) fixing the custom float format (no pun intended) 2)discussion of the key/dictionary ideas of Michael See you there -Mark From kvale Mon Sep 23 10:38:45 1996 Received: from localhost by louis.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA17681 for ken@phy.ucsf.EDU; Mon, 23 Sep 1996 10:38:45 -0700 Message-Id: <9609231738.AA17681@louis.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: Meeting today Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 10:38:45 -0700 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp Just a little reminder - we are having a meeting today at 2pm in the Keck conference room to wrap up custom floats and discuss the key/dictionary idea. -Mark From kvale Thu Dec 12 17:22:45 1996 Received: from localhost by aretha.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA15526 for ken@phy.ucsf.EDU; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 17:22:45 -0500 Message-Id: <9612122222.AA15526@aretha.ucsf.edu> To: spiffers Subject: meeting? Date: Thu, 12 Dec 96 14:22:45 +0000 From: Mark Kvale X-Mts: smtp I finally updated the SPIFF specification to include all the changes suggested at the last meeting, including the dictionary system suggested by Michael. The new version is in my SPIFF working directory: http://keck.ucsf.edu:80/projects/spiff/kvale/spiff5.ps I would appreciate it if you could take a look at it and give me your comments, especially if you see any errors or typos. There are a few others groups who are interested in our work and I'd like to send them a copy of our spec. It seemed last meeting that we had converged on our SPIFF feature specification, so perhaps we should consider the current spec (modulo typos) to be our final spec for SPIFF version 1.0. The next step is the implementation of SPIFF. I propose that we have a meeting to discuss issues such as - how it will be implemented: unix-style filters, all in one program like sox, or a C library and API? - design of the API? - who is going to do the programming? Comments? -Mark From holder@phy.ucsf.EDU Mon Apr 28 10:04:20 1997 Received: from amadeus.ucsf.EDU by phy.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA16624 for svilen; Mon, 28 Apr 1997 10:04:20 -0700 Received: from ) by amadeus.ucsf.EDU (5.65v3.2/GSC4.25) id AA07041 for spiffers@phy.ucsf.EDU; Mon, 28 Apr 1997 10:04:20 -0700 Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 10:04:20 -0700 Message-Id: <9704281704.AA07041@amadeus.ucsf.EDU> From: Gaylord Holder To: peper@phy.ucsf.edu Cc: spiffers@phy.ucsf.edu In-Reply-To: <9704252204.AA28204@bach.ucsf.edu> (peper@phy.ucsf.edu) Subject: Re: Spiff mailing list Done. From holder@phy.ucsf.EDU Tue Jul 15 15:40:04 1997 Received: from amadeus.ucsf.EDU by phy.ucsf.edu (5.65v3.2/GSC4.24) with SMTP id AA10863 for svilen; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:40:04 -0700 Received: from ) by amadeus.ucsf.EDU (5.65v3.2/GSC4.25) id AA10715 for spiffers@phy.ucsf.EDU; Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:40:03 -0700 Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:40:03 -0700 Message-Id: <9707152240.AA10715@amadeus.ucsf.EDU> From: Gaylord Holder To: spiffers@phy.ucsf.EDU Subject: Spiff API I need some clarifications on the spiff spec in order to do a reasonable job on this API. May I assume the entire spiff file will fit in memory? If not, spiff files should be required to have an index to avoid having sequentially walk through the file to figure out where things are. -Gaylord