Software

For over 20 years, ISCaD GmbH has managed numerous IT projects for public institutions, hospitals, medical supply stores and telecommunications providers.

We specialise in Java, Python, JavaScript and HTML5, and have many years of expertise in the fields of data processing, analysis and presentation.

We also create online applications with Tomcat, Jetty, WildFly, JBoss, Django, Gunicorn, Flask and Tornado, as well as all kinds of SQL and NoSQL databases.

Software – (almost) everything you need to know

At this point, we would like to present a series of articles on software development, data formats and technical terms. If you want to know more, send us an Email or use our chat function.

Article 01The HDF5 data format

The HDF5 (HDF5 group copyright) data format (open source) is a very flexible data model that can represent very complex heterogeneous data objects and a wide variety of metadata through an unlimited variation of data types.

For applications, there are no limits on the size of the HDF5 files.

HDF5 is suitable for the high-speed recording of measured values. The self-describing format does not need any external information so that applications can record the structure and data in a file.

The HDF5 format is also a solution for long-term data archiving.

If you need to store and process extensive and complex interrelated recorded data, which in turn also includes the addition of comprehensive metadata, we recommend the HDF5 storage format.

Characterisation of the HDF5 format

Let’s take clinical data as an example. We have lots of experience with this type of data.

We’ll look at heart operations/catheter procedures. To be able to make statements about the quality and benefits of such procedures, long-term studies and an extensive amount of complex interrelated data are required. To map out the necessary data for such a study, we have chosen the following form:

All this information about a patient, including metadata, can be easily stored in HDF5 format. From this structure, evaluations and analysis data for the patient can, in turn, be stored in another group. Naturally this is possible for any number of patients, not just one.

The flexible structure means that complete data sets do not have to be uploaded for large data volumes – it is easy to extract specific elements from large data sets for processing.

Word documents and images can also be stored in HDF5 format and made available for long-term use.

The HDF5 format makes it possible, for example, to save projects with all metadata, measured values, graphical representations and documents, as well as communication data, in a way that is secure and portable across platforms.

Want to find out more about HDF5? Send us an email or use our chat function.

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