How is a data stream defined within the IDFS paradigm?
A data stream within the IDFS paradigm is classified as coming from a scalar virtual instrument or a vector virtual instrument. A scalar instrument is an instrument whose sensors, or data products, represent a set of singular data values that are dependent only upon time and position, i.e. a housekeeping temperature monitor. A vector instrument is an instrument whose sensors, or data products, represent multivalue (1-D) data sets that have known functional dependencies other than time or position, i.e. a particle spectrometer which returns counts as a function of energy. The length of the 1-D array is dictated by the IDFS data source.
