Until 2015, there was no open and standardized file format for storing and exchanging MPI raw data. For this reason, our institute, in collaboration with other renowned MPI researchers, developed a data format based on the Hierarchical Data Format (HDF5). The early involvement of several institutions in the development of the data format and the open process made it possible to consider numerous requirements. All development and discussion took place on GitHub under the GNU GPL, and the final specification was published on arXiv. The MDF is versioned and constantly evolving. Sample scripts in various programming languages (Python, Julia, Matlab) allow even beginners to use the data without having to implement the complete specification. It also contains links to sample 2D data of a 5-point phantom, whose reconstruction is shown on the right.

The current release v2.1.0 of the specification can be found here:

• MDF Specification

and the main project page at

• github.com/MagneticParticleImaging/MDF

We appreciate any feedback / suggestions that can be sent to us by email. Improvements and amendments can also be made directly on Github.