Add a new file format: ASDF (Roman) as input source catalog.

[sshen-stsci]

Feature request Support ASDF file format

Before submitting Please check the following:

Roman source catalog will be generated with ASDF file format. It would be very helpful to have HATS to support ASDF file format in addition to parquet file format. We plan to use HATS to perform Roman catalog spatial search.

Related links: https://github.com/asdf-format/asdf https://github.com/asdf-format/tutorials

[sshen-stsci]

@nevencaplar Per our discussion today, I created a new issue to address ASDF file format support. Please feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions regarding this request. It will be very important feature to support our Roman catalogs. Thank you!

[hombit]

@sshen-stsci thank you for the idea! Since ASDF is a very flexible standard, it would help if you could provide some example data files with a realistic schema.

[sshen-stsci]

Thank you, @hombit! Our calibration team is working on producing new set of Roman asdf files as part of their new data release. They will be available in couple weeks. It might be better for us to wait for the new release of the catalog ASDF files. I will send it over when it is available.

[delucchi-cmu]

We created an example ASDF reader a few months ago, using a very small example file. Please find the reader implementation, and some explanatory text here:

https://github.com/lincc-frameworks/notebooks_lf/blob/main/hipscat_analysis/asdf/asdf_reader.py https://github.com/lincc-frameworks/notebooks_lf/blob/main/hipscat_analysis/asdf/asdf.ipynb

With current import code, and little custom code on your side (provided above), this is already supported with existing tools.

We do not have plans to support storing HATS in any format other than parquet.

[nevencaplar]

Ok, in discussion with @sshen-stsci, this ticket should be: `Given the sample Roman input file, verify we can import it'