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About DELTA |
DELTA stands for DEscription Language for TAxonomy. The DELTA system consists of a flexible format for coding descriptive taxonomic information and a set of associated programs which manipulate the data to produce natural-language descriptions and keys, interactive identification and information retrieval, and to convert data into formats required by programs for phenetic and cladistic analysis.
The DELTA format allows all kinds of characters, both qualitative (binary or multistate, ordered or unordered) or quantitative (integer or real, with units if needed). Comments are allowed anywhere, and character dependency can be described. Directives are used to control computer processing of DELTA-coded data.
The original DELTA system has been under development since the mid 1970's by Mike Dallwitz at CSIRO Division of Entomology, Canberra, Australia. Later on, similar packages for processing of DELTA data were developed in the United Kingdom by Richard Pankhurst of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh (PANKEY), in The Netherlands by Eric Gouda at the Botanic Gardens of Utrecht University (TAXASOFT), in Australia by Nicholas Lander at the Western Australian Herbarium (DMSWIN), in Spain by Antonio Valdecasas at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (EDEL), in Germany by Gregor Hagedorn at the Institute of Microbiology, Federal Biological Research Center (DELTAAccess), in the United States by Michael Bartley and Noel Cross at the Arnold Arboretum of the Harvard University (NaviKey), and in Brazil by Mauro J. Cavalcanti at Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (DIANA), among several other DELTA programs.
In 1988, DELTA was adopted by the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases for Plant Sciences (TDWG) as an internationally recognised standard for data encoding and exchange. Combining traditional taxonomic practices with modern information technology, the DELTA system has since became one of the most valuable and widely used computerized tools for biodiversity research.
Large datasets
have already been prepared with DELTA, for flowering plant
families, grasses, sedges, legumes, beetles (adults and larvae),
ants, corals, plant viruses, etc. Several of these datasets
incorporate line, gray-scale and color illustrations, and some
were made freely available on the Internet, along with the full
DELTA software package itself.
About Free DELTA |
The Free DELTA project was launched in April, 2000 with the aim of creating a complete Linux-compatible free, legally unencumbered -- that is, not covered by any patents -- software system for processing taxonomic descriptions coded in DELTA format, following the decision by CSIRO Division of Entomology to stop funding the development of the original DELTA programs.
In May, 2004 the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA) at Manaus showed interest in Free DELTA and from October, 2004 onwards the Instituto started to support the development of the project as part of its Free Software Initiative, beginning with providing a secure basis for the Free DELTA Web site on the INPA server, where it is now to be located.
To begin with, the Free DELTA package will include a library for reading/writing DELTA-format files plus all the utilities needed to process taxonomic data coded in DELTA: format-conversion, key-construction, distance-matrix generation, and interactive identification programs. After this we will add a specialized editor for handling taxonomic descriptive data. We hope to supply, eventually, everything that normally comes with the DELTA system, and anything else useful, including on-line documentation.
Free DELTA will be able to process regular DELTA-coded files, but will not be identical to the original DELTA system. We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other taxonomic computing systems. In particular, it will have a better treatment of quantitative data, more analytical and format-conversion procedures, and many other things.
Free DELTA software will be released as free software, under the GNU General Public License.
It was decided to make the Free DELTA programs compatible with Linux, a free operating system, because it is fully secure, widely available, and more reliable than expensive commercial operating systems. Estimates are that hundreds of thousands of people all over the world now use Linux-based systems, including Slackware, Debian, Red Hat, Mandrake, and many others.
The Free DELTA programs will be written in a very standard subset of C++ (ANSI C++), an object-oriented programming language that is available on most computers (from mainframes to microcomputers), following as closely as possible the GNU Coding Standards and the Mozilla C++ Portability Guide. The programs in the package should therefore work with no (or just a few) modifications on most operating systems. Full C++ source code will be distributed in the regular version of Free DELTA. Precompiled, ready-to-run executables will be also made available, for Unix workstations, Linux & DOS/Windows PC's, and Macintoshes.
The package will include extensive documentation files that
should provide all the information necessary to use and modify
the programs.
Downloads |
The first stable version of Free DELTA will contain programs for basic processing of taxonomic descriptive data coded in DELTA format and carrying out certain related tasks (eg. key-generation, interactive identification, description printing).
Notice: The Free DELTA distribution files come in either .tar.gz or .zip format. The .tar.gz format is most suitable for UNIX machines (including Linux) and the .zip format is most suitable for DOS/Windows PCs.
| Version | Date | Format | OS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.21 | December 2003 | gzip | Linux  |
| 0.20 | December 2003 | gzip | Linux |
| 0.20 | August 2001 | gzip | Linux |
| 0.20 | August 2001 | zip | Windows |
| 0.10 | January 2001 | gzip | Linux |
| 0.10 | January 2001 | zip | Windows |
| 0.02 | October 2000 | gzip | Linux |
| 0.02 | October 2000 | zip | Windows |
| 0.01 | July 2000 | gzip | Linux/Windows |
DELTA Mailing List |
We recommend to join the DELTA-L mailing
list for up-to-date information and efficient support.
Free DELTA Contributors |
How You Can Contribute |
Able, committed software developers and biologists are always welcome in the Free DELTA project.
Individual programmers can contribute by writing a compatible
duplicate of some DELTA utility and giving it to the Free DELTA
project. We are looking for people for whom knowing they are
helping humanity (by assuring the continuity and free
availability of DELTA as a valuable biodiversity research tool)
is more important than money. For most projects, such part-time
distributed work would be very hard to coordinate; the
independently-written parts would not work together. But for the
particular task of replacing the DELTA system, this problem is
absent. Most interface specifications will be fixed by DELTA
compatibility. If each contribution works with the rest of DELTA,
it will probably work with the rest of Free DELTA.
Related Projects |
Acknowledgments |
We are grateful to everybody who has helped us by contributing knowledge, good ideas, moral support, programming time, technical expertise, and bug reports. We are particularly indebted (in alphabetical order) to Adriano Kury, Edinaldo Nelson, Eric Zurcher, Gregor Hagedorn, Jeffrey Shaw, Joe Kirkbride, Mike Dallwitz, and Peter Roopnarine. Thank you very much!
Send inquiries & questions to Mauro J. Cavalcanti.
Copyright © 2000-2004 The Free DELTA Project.
Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Last updated August 28, 2004
Visited times since 12 April, 2000
Free DELTA