Package 6 — Records & Vectors¶

Package 6 defines two composite types for grouping named components: DataRecord for heterogeneous field collections and Vector for coordinate tuples.

DataRecord¶

An ISO-11404 Record — an ordered sequence of named fields. This is the workhorse composite type for structuring observation data. A weather station output, an IMU reading, a water quality sample — all naturally map to a DataRecord.

Field	Type	Description
`dataComponent`	AbstractDataComponent	Inherited metadata
`fields`	list of NamedComponent	Ordered named fields (min 1)

Example: weather observation¶

A DataRecord with three fields:

DataRecord "WeatherObs"
├── temperature: Quantity (uom: "Cel")
├── humidity: Quantity (uom: "%")
└── timestamp: Time (ISO-8601)

DataRecords can nest — a field's component can itself be another DataRecord, a DataArray, or any other component type via the AnyComponent union.

Vector¶

A mathematical vector — a list of scalar coordinates in a reference frame. While superficially similar to a DataRecord, a Vector is semantically different: its components represent coordinates in a coordinate reference system (CRS), and the referenceFrame field is required.

Field	Type	Description
`dataComponent`	AbstractDataComponent	Inherited metadata
`referenceFrame`	string	URI-reference to a CRS (required)
`localFrame`	string	URI-reference — frame located by this vector
`coordinates`	list of NamedCoordinate	The coordinate components

CoordinateComponent¶

Vector coordinates are restricted to three scalar types: Count, Quantity, or Time. This is a narrower union than AnyScalarComponent.

Cap'n ProtoFlatBuffersProtocol Buffers

struct CoordinateComponent {
  union {
    count    @0 :SC.Count;
    quantity @1 :SC.Quantity;
    time     @2 :SC.Time;
  }
}

union CoordinateComponent { Count, Quantity, Time }

message CoordinateComponent {
  oneof coordinate {
    Count count = 1;
    Quantity quantity = 2;
    Time time = 3;
  }
}

Example: WGS84 position¶

Vector "Position"
  referenceFrame: "http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/4326"
  coordinates:
  ├── lat: Quantity (uom: "deg", axisID: "Lat")
  ├── lon: Quantity (uom: "deg", axisID: "Lon")
  └── alt: Quantity (uom: "m", axisID: "h")

DataRecord vs. Vector¶

Aspect	DataRecord	Vector
Purpose	General-purpose grouping	Coordinate tuples
Field types	Any component	Count, Quantity, or Time only
Reference frame	Not required	Required
Nesting	Fields can contain any component	Coordinates are leaf-level scalars