Why should we store images? There are many reasons why storing images can be useful, but one is the ability to re-analyze the data for a structure, or for all structures, in a systematic and improved way.
I imagine that in a few years the PDB-REDO approach to rebuilding structures will be extended to complete redetermination of all structures on a regular basis. The resulting structures will continuously improve, and each new redetermination will be stored so that a static view can be referenced. The data for these structures will remain constant, the interpretation will change (presumably an improvement). The logical continuation of this approach will be to move back from merged data to unmerged data, and then to raw images. Surely we will develop improved methods for analysis of images, and structures (or perhaps details of structures) will improve. Surely also some structures that were determined with less than optimal care today will become accurate structures in this way. -Tom T The raw data for >> Why should we store images? >> >> From most of the posts it seems to aid in software development. If that is >> the case, there should be a Failed Protein Databank (FPDB) where people >> could upload datasets which they cannot solve. This would aid software >> development and allow someone else to have ago at solving the structure. >> >> If it is for historical reasons, how can someone decide whether their >> structure is historical? I would propose that images should be uploaded >> for a protein or protein-complex that has never be solved before. That way >> the images are there if that structure does become historical. >> >> The question is not whether or not images should be uploaded but who would >> use the images that were uploaded. >> >> For example, people who use crystallography as a tool to aid in >> characterization of their protein, would probably not look at images for >> 99.5% of other protein datasets, and they probably would not look at >> images for a protein that is related to their own protein. They are more >> interested in the final structure. I too would probably not be interested >> in reprocessing and solving a structure again when I can easily access the >> final product already. >>
