About data files

Echoview uses the term "data file" to refer to files of data logged from echosounders and other equipment, Echoview data files or text data files.

Data files are usually primary information archived from a survey. Echoview will never change or modify a logged data file.

Data files generally contain data for an arbitrary period of time. They do not usually correspond to a transect, or other logical unit of data, that needs to be analyzed as a single logical unit.

Data files are organized into EV files for the purpose of analysis. When a data file is added to an EV file the original data are not copied or modified in any way. Rather, the EV file stores pointers to the data. The results of any changes made to an EV file are also stored in the same EV file; for example, when a calibration setting is changed, only the new calibration parameter value is stored rather than the modified data values.

There is no in-built limit to the number of data files or the total volume of data that can be added to a single EV file, however, the performance of Echoview will deteriorate if too many files are added. The number of data files that can be added to an EV file, without causing an unacceptable reduction in performance, will depend on the power of your computer hardware. In most cases, EV files referring to 100's of Megabytes of data will give reasonable performance.

Use an ECS file to modify the calibration settings applied to data when you want calibrated data for quantitative analysis.

Use settings from the Fileset Properties dialog box to manage the derivation of raw variables and the creation of transducers when new raw variables are created.

See also

About EV files
About Filesets
Ordering of Data Files
Data file information
Adding and removing data files
International character support
About file management