Echoview ASCII calibration files

This file type is not supported in Echoview 5.0 or higher.

Echoview allows for some calibration settings to be loaded from a specially formatted data file. These data files come in two formats, text and binary. This page describes the (text) character-encoded format. See also Echoview binary calibration files.

Echoview ASCII calibration files carry the .ecl extension. Currently they are used only for Sv variables from multibeam sonars.

They must be added to a fileset and selected on the Calibration 2 page of the Variable Properties dialog box. They must conform to the following specification.

Note: Pre-Echoview 4.80 ASCII character encoding was supported. Pre-Echoview 5.0 UTF-8, UTF-16 and ASCII encoding was supported.

Specification

An Echoview calibration file is in the Windows .ini file format. That is to say, it is a plain text file which contains sections and key/value pairs as described below. The file extension must be .ecl (Echoview Calibration).

1. Comments can be included in the file on lines beginning with a semicolon (;)


2. Sections are identified by a line which contains only a section header in brackets and three types of section are recognized as follows:



[FileInfo]	contains information describing the file
[Multibeam]	contains multibeam calibration information
[beamangles]	can have any name you choose, being referred to by the EquivalentTwoWayBeamAngles key in the [Multibeam] section - see below



3. Each section is expected to contain the following keys:
   

   [FileInfo]
   Type	must be "Echoview calibration"
   Version	must be a number between 100 and 199
   [Multibeam]
   CalibrationOffset	a value in dB which is used in the sonar equation
   NumberOfBeams	the number of beams in the variable to which this file is applied
   EquivalentTwoWayBeamAngles	specifies the name of a section in which Equivalent two way beam angles are defined for beams numbered 0 to NumberOfBeams-1
   [beamangles]
   n	where n is a number from 0 to NumberOfBeams-1, a value in dB which is used in the sonar equation.

    
4. Each of the keys is assigned a value with the equal sign (=) as follows:
   
   key = value
   
   where
             key is the key being set, and
             value is the value it is being set to

Example

An example .ecl file follows to illustrate:

; A sample Echoview calibration file for a multibeam echosounder with 16 beams
[FileInfo]
Type = Echoview calibration
Version = 100

; Set the general calibration values
[Multibeam]
CalibrationOffset = 0
NumberOfbeams = 16
EquivalentTwoWayBeamAngles = Angles

; Set the beam specific calibration values
[Angles]
 0 = 0.51
 1 = 0.50
 2 = 0.35
 3 = 0.21
 4 = 0.19
 5 = 0.12
 6 = 0.05
 7 = 0.01
 8 = 0.0
 9 = 0.02
10 = 0.09
11 = 0.13
12 = 0.21
13 = 0.29
14 = 0.34
15 = 0.42
16 = 0.49

See also

About calibration settings
Echoview binary calibration files