imgCIF / CBF CHARACTERISTICS

MULTIPLE (pseudo)-ASCII HEADERS and BINARY SECTIONS.

HEADERS contain CIF DATA ITEMS from ANY CIF DICTIONARY.

One HEADER SECTION can define MULTIPLE ARRAYS (or other binary objects).

2 DATA COMPRESSION ALGORITHMS are available in Version 1. One FAST, and the second CLOSE TO OPTIMAL. (No compression is also supported.)

HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURING is possible through data item relationships. (This comes from mmCIF.)

imgCIF and other CIF dictionaries are EXTENSIBLE. (An editorial Board has just been established to review proposals for new mmCIF data items.)