This working group brings together European groups working in the field of 3D (mostly integral field) spectroscopy to share experience, software and expertise.

Coordinated developments are required in order to realize the full scientific potential of existing and new astronomical facilities, and to ensure adequate human resources are available to meet the technical and scientific challenges the present. Investments in new information technology developments are crucial in the present era in astronomy, where the newest facilities and instruments generate not only huge data volumes but also data of high complexity and dimensionality. New techniques are generating a data flood that has to be processed, shared and explored by the community.

The EURO-3D working group collaborated to prepare an EU RTN proposal, taking as a starting point an earlier, unsucessful RTD proposal. This new proposal was co-ordinated by mmroth@aip.de Martin Roth of AIP, Potsdam. This revised proposal was supported by the EU and a 3,5 year contract started on 1 July 2002.

Now this proposal has been accepted, the working group is concentrating on defining a 3D data format, and co-ordinating this with various interested parties.

Here is a brief summary of the working group's progress: