SIST ISO 28178:2010

INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 28178
First edition
2009-03-15
Graphic technology — Exchange format
for colour and process control data using
XML or ASCII text
Technologie graphique — Format d'échange pour les données de
couleur et de contrôle de procédé en utilisant du texte XML ou ASCII

Reference number
©
ISO 2009
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ii © ISO 2009 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction.v
1 Scope.1
2 Normative references.1
3 Terms and definitions .1
4 Requirements.2
4.1 General description of a conforming file .2
4.2 Tags and keywords .3
4.3 Data tables .11
Annex A (informative) Advantages of an XML data reporting format.16
Annex B (informative) Tag and keyword examples.18
Annex C (informative) Sample files.22
Annex D (informative) Example of use of user-defined keywords.26
Annex E (informative) Corresponding tags and keywords used in database AMPAC.28
Bibliography.36

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies
(ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through ISO
technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been
established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and
non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.
International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The main task of technical committees is to prepare International Standards. Draft International Standards
adopted by the technical committees are circulated to the member bodies for voting. Publication as an
International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the member bodies casting a vote.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent
rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
ISO 28178 was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 130, Graphic technology, and is based on
ANSI CGATS 17:2005.
iv © ISO 2009 – All rights reserved

Introduction
A number of International Standards used by the graphic technology community require the reporting of
measured and/or computed data. Several of these standards, e.g. the ISO 12642 series and ISO 13655,
contain suggested formats for the data to be exchanged. These have used the ASCII keyword-value pair
approach and have been widely used by some industry segments. However, there has never been a
consolidated definition of the various formats.
This International Standard is intended to support all existing and future graphic arts standards that require the
exchange of measured, computed, or process control data and the associated metadata necessary for its
proper interpretation. It is specifically not intended for graphic arts content data, which are covered by
ISO 15930 and ISO 12639.
In reviewing the needs of such a format the following requirements were identified:
⎯ applications based on the existing ASCII formats not be made obsolete;
⎯ data need to be in a form that is both human-readable (once the digital file has been displayed using
standard editors, or file readers) and machine-readable;
⎯ data need to be readable by automated programs to extract the necessary information;
⎯ data files need to be extensible by end users in such a way as to allow additional information to be
included without breaking automated readers of the file;
⎯ data files need to be capable of being created by automated programs;
⎯ the format needs to allow multiple language representation of data.
The file formats chosen to accomplish this task are a combination of XML and extensions of the existing ASCII
keyword-value file format, coupled with the necessary tools to allow appropriate conversions to and from XML
from ASCII keyword-value files. However, either the XML file format or the ASCII keyword-value file format
can be used independently. Annex E shows the AMPAC (see ISO/TR 16044) coding for each of the ASCII
keywords.
These formats make use of predefined XML tags and ASCII keywords. Values are associated with the tags
and keywords and remain in effect until another instance of the tag or keyword. Provision is made to allow the
use of data tables and to separately define the format within data tables. Multiple occurrences of such data
tables within a single file are also permitted. User-defined tags and keywords are also allowed.
See Annex A for a discussion of the advantages of an XML data reporting format and references to a
demonstration suite.
A demonstration suite based on this International Standard has been made available for use as part of a
testing and development program. It is available from NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing,
Publishing and Converting Technologies, at http://www.npes.org/standards/tools.html. See A.5 for more
information.
Subsequent to the final approval of this International Standard, ISO/TC 130 decided that additional verification
of the XML implementation was desirable and an editing committee was formed to address this issue. The
editing committee reported that the vendor of a commercial XML data exchange application had success in
mapping both the ASCII and XML portions of this International Standard into their application. This was felt to
provide a verification of the XML implementation proposed in this International Standard.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 28178:2009(E)

Graphic technology — Exchange format for colour and process
control data using XML or ASCII text
1 Scope
This International Standard defines an exchange format for colour and process control data (and the
associated metadata necessary for its proper interpretation) in electronic form using either XML or ASCII
formatted data files. It maintains human readability of the data as well as enabling machine readability. It
includes a series of predefined tags and keywords, and provides extensibility through provision for the
dynamic definition of additional tags and keywords as necessary. It is focused primarily on spectral
measurement data, colorimetric data, and densitometric data.
This International Standard is intended to be used in conjunction with other standards that will define the
required data, and tags or keywords for specific data exchange applications.
2 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated
references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced
document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO/IEC 646, Information technology — ISO 7-bit coded character set for information interchange
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (2nd ed.), World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), W3C
Recommendation 6 October 2000. Available at http://www.w3.org
XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), W3C Recommendation 16
November 1999. Available at http://www.w3.org
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
3.1
data format identifier
predefined set of characters, without intervening spaces, forming a unique word that is used to identify the
presence of a defined item of data in a subsequent data table
3.2
keyword
predefined set of characters, without intervening spaces, forming a unique word that is used to identify the
presence of a defined item of information
3.3
schema
XML document that, following the rules established by the World Wide Web Consortium, defines the structure
of a class of XML documents
3.4
value
information immediately following a keyword that represents the data content or “value” associated with that
keyword
4 Requirements
4.1 General description of a conforming file
4.1.1 XML format
This file format is an XML format that complies with Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0. The format
makes use of predefined tags that identify information commonly used to describe graphic arts samples. In
addition, users of this format are allowed to define tags to tailor the format to their specific needs according to
the rules of XML namespace.
The data file is divided into two sections. The preamble is the first section. This section provides general
information and describes the conditions under which data was collected. The preamble tag is
iso28178.preamble. Tags used in the preamble are listed in 4.2.
The data section is the second section, which is further divided into two parts. The first part of the data section
provides the information that describes the type and location of the table contents; the second section
contains the data values.
The schema associated with the XML format defined in this International Standard is contained in file
iso28178_data.xsd, which is an essential normative part of this International Standard. This International
Standard also provides structural XML tags that are needed for the proper specification of an XML document
instance.
NOTE See Annex A for a discussion on the need and application of the XML data reporting format.
4.1.2 ASCII format
This file format is an ASCII format keyword-value file. It makes use of predefined keywords and data tables.
Values are associated with the keyword that precedes them and remain in effect until another instance of the
keyword-value pair. Data values are delimited by the BEGIN_DATA and END_DATA keywords.
Keywords and values, as well as fields within data tables, are separated by white space. Valid white space
characters are space (position 2/0 of ISO/IEC 646), carriage return (position 0/13 of ISO/IEC 646), newline
(position 0/10 of ISO/IEC 646), and tab (position 0/9 of ISO/IEC 646). Keywords may be separated from
values using any valid white space character. Only the space and tab may precede a keyword on a line.
Comments are preceded by a single comment character (a single character keyword). The comment
character is the “#” (position 2/3 of ISO/IEC 646) symbol. Comments may begin any place on a line, and are
terminated by a newline or carriage return character.
4.1.3 Exchanged data file structure
A file containing measurement data would normally be structured as shown in Figure 1. This structure allows
multiple tables of data within a single exchange file.
2 © ISO 2009 – All rights reserved

Preamble
File header containing the tags/keywords Originator, File Descriptor, Created
Data Section 1
Header
Table Descriptor/Table Name plus tags/keywords
Data
The data table and its formatting information
#
#
Data Section N
Header
Table Descriptor/Table Name plus tags/keywords
Data
The data table and its formatting information
Figure 1 — File structure
4.2 Tags and keywords
4.2.1 General
Most tags and keywords may appear in the file in any order, and may appear multiple times within the file.
Values
...