Ian Hunt-Isaak

Xarray provides data structures for multi-dimensional labeled arrays and a toolkit for scalable data analysis on large, complex datasets. Many real-world datasets fit this structure.

In the past year Xarray has seen increased usage across various sub-fields of biology, revealing interesting challenges. It can be difficult to determine the best way to represent a data structure (e.g.

Xarray provides data structures for multi-dimensional labeled arrays and a toolkit for scalable data analysis on large, complex datasets. Many real-world datasets often have hierarchical or heterogeneous structure, and are best organized through groups of related data arrays.

Xarray has enormous potential as a data model and toolkit for labeled N-D arrays in biology. Originally developed within the geosciences community, it is seeing increased usage in biology, with applications ranging from genomics to image analysis and beyond.