We would like to announce a further pre-release of a standard for the
exchange of optical (visible/IR) interferometry data.  Earlier versions of
this standard were presented and discussed at the 2001 and 2002
meetings of the IAU Working Group on Optical/IR Interferometry.
The latest draft addresses points raised at the 2002 Working Group
Meeting.

We feel that this draft standard is simple and straightforward
to implement and contains everything necessary to exchange calibrated
visibility data for the purpose of making images. The documentation
for the standard and sample programs which implement the standard,
written in ANSI C, are available at
http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/~jsy1001/exchange/
 
The authors would like to thank Bill Cotton and John Monnier for their
contributions to this latest draft.

We are aiming to freeze the standard early in 2003, and would
therefore welcome any comments or corrections. Please reply to
the oi-data email list server: oi-data@rsd.nrl.navy.mil
 
John Young (COAST) and Tom Pauls (NPOI)