Echoview data and hardware support
Echoview® is the industry-standard software for marine and freshwater hydroacoustic data processing, and supports an unrivaled range of data file formats.
As a result of close and ongoing collaboration with the fisheries acoustics community, Echoview supports data from:
- Single beam echosounders
- Multibeam echosounders and sonars
- Imaging sonar/acoustic cameras
- Omnisonars and scanning sonars
- Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP)
- Video and digital cameras
- External sensors
Other hardware
If your hardware is not listed but similar instruments from the same manufacturer are listed, Echoview may be able to read your files.
File format compatibility can be confirmed by downloading and installing Echoview, and then on the File menu click New. Click Add on the Filesets window that appears and select your data files. Raw variables will be extracted and shown if the data format is compatible. A license is not required to try this. Please contact Echoview support if you have file support problems or questions.
Generic file formats
Data from unsupported instruments can be written to the Echoview Data File Format, an Echoview-defined data file type for storing echosounder and sonar data, as well as supporting measurements. Products using the EVD format include iXblue SeapiX and Zunibal ZSR. Please contact Echoview support to obtain the Echoview Data File Format Definition document.
Other generic formats that have some limitations in capabilities are:
- a range of Echoview-specific text file (CSV) formats
- the ICES standard HAC format (*.hac) data files containing:
- generic echosounder and channel tuples
- Simrad EK500 echosounder and channel tuples
- BioSonics model 102 echosounder and channel tuples
- Split-beam detected single target tuple
Client specific formats can be supported (the CSIRO (*.raw) format, for example, is specific to the CSIRO). Please contact Echoview support with a request to support your data format if needed. We will require a complete specification of the data format in order to evaluate the proposal.
Supported hardware
Single, split, dual beam echosounders
- ASL Environmental Sciences Acoustic Zooplankton Fish Profiler (*.ppp), (*.xml), AZFP Echoview CSV files (*.csv)
- BioSonics Model 102, DE4000, DE5000, DE6000, DT4000, DT5000, DT6000 and DTX series of echosounder (*.dt4)
-
Furuno FQ80, ETR-30N, FCV-30 and FCV-38 echosounders
- FCV-30 (*.hac)
- FCV-38 (*.nc)
- FQ80 files (*.hac)
- ETR-30N ping data files (HF*.bin, LF*.bin)
- ETR-30N position data files (LL*.bin)
- ETR-30N phase data files (PhHF*.bin, PhLF*.bin)
-
HTI Models 241/243/244 split-beam digital echosounder system
- raw echo (*.raw)
- tracked echo (*.ech)
- physical echo (*.bot)
- integration output (*.int)
- sample (*.smp)
- sample files with calibration and settings (*.smp)
- Navico Group Lowrance HDS and Elite sonar logs (*.sl2, *.sl3, *.slg)
- Nortek Signature current profilers, echosounder data (*.ad2cp, *.nmea, *.anpp)
- Precision Acoustic Systems PAS-103 Single-beam and PAS-103 Split-beam echosounder HARP format (*.ts4)
-
Simrad EK80, ES80, EK60, Ex70, EK15, EQ60, ES60, EY60, EK500, EA500, EY500, EA600, and EA400 echosounder
- BI500 data files (-ping, -vlog, -data, -info, -work)
- EK15 (*.raw)
- EK80 family (including WBT, WBAT, EKAuto, ES80 and Kongsberg EA640) (*.raw, *.xyz)
- ES80 (*.raw)
- EK500 data logged with DFO/NHP/DAT CH1 logging software (.hac)
- EK500 telegrams logged with Simrad ER60 software (.dg)
- Ex60 data files logged with Echolog 60 (.ek60, .ek6)
- Ex60 (*.raw, *.out, *.bot)
- Ex70 (*.raw)
- Ex500 and Ex60 data logged with Echolog 500 (.ek5)
- EY500 data, and EK500 data logged with Simrad EP500 software (.dgn)
- SonarData EchoListener (*.ELD)
-
Sonic KFC-500, KFC-1000, KFC-2000, KFC-3000, KFC-6000/KSE-300 and KFS
- KFC-500 (*.050)
- KFC-1000 (*.100)
- KFC-2000 (*.200)
- KFC-3000 (*.100)
- KFC-5000 (*.100)
- KFC-6000 /KSE-300 (*.200)
- KFS (*.FS3)
Wideband/Broadband systems
- Simrad EK80 family (including WBT, WBAT, EKAuto, ES80 and Kongsberg EA640) (*.raw, *.xyz) operating under continuous wave and/or frequency modulation
Multibeam echosounders and sonars
-
Kongsberg EM series including but not limited to EM 3002, EM 3002D and EM 710. Other EM series echosounders from Kongsberg may log data to similar (if not the same) data files as those officially supported by Echoview. Hence, such files may be used in Echoview despite being unlisted.
- EM 3002 format (*.all)
- EM 3002D format (*.all)
- EM 3002D format (*.wcd - support is incomplete for this file type)
- EM 710 format (*.all)
- EM systems format (*.KMall, *.KMwcd) EM 3002, EM 3001, EM 3000, EM 2000, EM 1002, EM 710, EM 302, EM 300, EM 122, EM 121A, EM 120, EM 2040 and EM 2040C
- Kongsberg Mesotech SM20 multibeam echosounder (*.smb, *.nnn)
- Norbit (*.s7k)
- R2Sonic (*.r2s)
-
RESON SeaBat T20, 6K series, 7K series, 8K series including but not limited to 6012, 7000, 7125, 7128, T20-P, 8101 and 8125 (equipped with the optional hardware extension for digitized sonar images)
- SeaBat 6K (*.sbi)
- SeaBat 7K series (*.s7k)
- SeaBat 8K series (*.sns, *.raw)
-
Simrad Mesotech SM2000 FR multibeam echosounder with recording kit
- SM2000 FR (*.raw, *.nnn)
- SM2000 FR (*.bfm, *.bmf, *.nnn)
- Simrad ME70 multibeam echosounder (*.raw)
- Teledyne Odom (*.s7k)
- WASSP WMB-3250 and converted data from Generation 3 systems (*.nwsf)
Imaging sonars/acoustic cameras
- Sound Metrics DIDSON Dual-frequency IDentification SONars DDF_03 format, DDF_04 format (*.ddf)
- Sound Metrics ARIS Dual-frequency sonars (*.aris)
- Blueprint Subsea Oculus multibeam imaging sonar (*.oculus)
- BlueView 2D imaging sonar (*.son)
- Kongsberg Mesotech M3 multibeam imaging sonar (*.imb) and Flexview multibeam sonar *.mmb data re-recorded as *.imb
Omnisonar and Scanning sonars
- Furuno FSV-25 (*.nc)
- Furuno FSV-30 (Research version) (*.fsv, *.nc)
- Kongsberg Mesotech MS 1000 (*.smb, *.nnn)
- Simrad SH80 (*.dzt, *.dat)
- Simrad SP70 (*.dzt, *.dat)
- Simrad SX90 long range, low frequency omnidirectional fish finding sonar (*.raw)
- Simrad SC90 high frequency, omnidirectional fish finding sonar (*.raw)
- Simrad SH90 high resolution, high frequency fishery sonar (*.raw)
- Simrad SU90 long range, low frequency fish finding sonar (*.raw)
- Simrad omnisonar (*.nc)
ADCP
- RD Instruments Workhorse series of ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers). Workhorse Output Data (*.nnn)
Video and image cameras
- Video data logged to *.mov, *.avi, *.wmv, *.mpeg, *.mp4, *.m4v
- Image data logged to *.jpg (with Exif)
External sensors
Data from selected external sensors such as GPS units, motion reference units (MRUs) and trawl sensors that is recorded with supported hardware systems.
Generic and other file formats
Echoview-specific text format
Note: Only UTF-8 character encoding is supported from Echoview 13 onward. Earlier versions supported UTF-8, UTF-16 or ASCII.
Supported Text data files (*.CSV) formats are:
- Single beam Sv files (*.sv.csv)
- Single beam TS files (*.ts.csv)
- Single beam Power files (*.power.csv)
- Single beam angular position files (*.angles.csv)
- Single beam linear variable files (*.linear.csv)
- Single beam target files (*.target.csv)
- Single beam boolean files (*.boolean.csv)
- Multibeam Sv files (*.sv.mb.csv)
- Multibeam TS files (*.ts.mb.csv)
- Multibeam linear magnitude value files (*.mag.mb.csv)
- Multibeam phase files (*.phase.mb.csv)
- Multibeam dB value files (*.db.mb.csv)
- Multibeam boolean files (*.boolean.mb.csv)
- Multibeam color files (*.color.mb.csv)
- Multibeam targets files (*.targets.mb.csv)
- Multibeam bottom detections export files (*.bottom.mb.csv)
- GPS fix files (*.gps.csv)
- Heading files (*.heading.csv)
- Length files (*.length.csv)
- Pitch files (*.pitch.csv)
- Roll files (*.roll.csv)
- Speed file(*.speed.csv)
- Bathymetric line files (*.line.csv)
- Line files (*.depth.csv)
Echoview utility
Data recorded by:
- Echolog 500 (*.EK5)
- Echolog 60 (*.EK60, *.EK6)
- Echolog 80 (*.raw)
See also
Text data files
Instrument file formats
Exporting in Echoview
Echoview logging utilities