Importing sounding data

The ASCII import function in Hydromagic allows you to import soundings in ASCII format. For instance, you can import a sounding exported from another Hydromagic project or created with other software.

The import ASCII sounding dialog which allows you to import (among others) sounding data.

Open the "Import ASCII Data" dialog

The dialog can be opened by selecting "File"=>"Import"=>"Import ASCII Data..." from the main menu. Depending on your software configuration, there may be a shortcut button in the toolbar as well.

One way to open the ASCII import tool is via the "File" => "Import" item in the main menu.

Select input file

Click the "Browse..." button to select the file to be imported. All files will be displayed, there is no file extension filter applied. Some file extensions that are commonly used for ASCII files include: *.ASC, *.TXT, *.LOG and *.CSV.

Since version 9.0, Hydromagic supports reading ASCII files saved as regular text files (ANSI), UTF8, UTF8-BOM, or UNICODE encoding, as the software will automatically detect the file encoding used. When using an older version, ensure the ASCII file is saved as ANSI or UTF8 (which is the case in most scenarios).

The imported file is never modified by this software. This dialog can also be used to import boundaries, matrices and waypoints.
Ensure that the 'Import data as' option is set to 'Sounding' when importing a sounding.

To interpret the selected ASCII file as sounding data, select "Sounding".

Field Separator

This value is set to "Auto" by default, which means that the software will try to detect which character is used to separate the data fields in the ASCII file. In most cases you do not have to adjust this value. Use this option only when the automatic setting does not work for you.

Select the separator used between the values or use "Auto" to detect automatically.

Skipping lines and fields

In cases where the data does not start on the first line of the file (for instance, when header names are present), you can skip these lines by increasing the "Number of lines to skip from start of file" setting.

The "Number of fields to skip from start of line" option can be used in cases where there are fields before the actual XYZ data, for instance, record id's. Use the 'View' button to display the contents of the ASCII file and determine whether these options apply to your input file.

Coordinate field order

This option is to set the order of the coordinate fields in the file. The following settings are supported:

• Latitude, Longitude;
• Longitude, Latitude;
• Northing, Easting;
• Easting, Northing;

If a third field is present in the file, it will be interpreted as depths. Most software stores soundings in XYZ format, so selecting "Easting, Northing" here would probably work in most cases.

Select the order of coordinate fields in the file.

Coordinate field format

When the input files contain values in geographic format (i.e., latitude and longitude), and the coordinates are stored in degrees, minutes and seconds format, or degrees and minutes format, use this option to select the correct value. If coordinates are stored in decimal values, leave the default 'Decimal' option selected.

When importing geographic coordinates, select the format used.

Numeric values format

In most cases you will encounter files where floating point values are stored in a format where a dot is used as decimal separator. In some cases, the data may have been exported by third-party software using a different format. For instance, a comma could be used as the decimal separator, or the minus symbol could be behind the value instead of in front of it.

Click the "Select..." button next to the "numeric value format" to change the locale.

To define another floating point number format for parsing the ASCII file, click the 'Select...' button next to the 'Numeric field format' setting to select another format (also called locale).In the dialog box that appears, select the region or locale that was used to generate the file. Examples of the number format will be updated while you browse to the countries.

Use the numeric format dialog box to try out various formats.

Please note that you do not have to select the same locale as was used to generate the ASCII file. As soon as the number format matches, you should be good.

Projection and Units

The software needs to know which projection is used in the file (only when Northing and Easting coordinates are used instead of Latitude and Longitude), so it can be referenced to WGS84 coordinates. When altitude or depth values are present in the file, you also need to select the (vertical) units used.

Make sure to select the coordinate reference system used in
the file when different from the current project.

Importing the file

Click 'OK' to start processing the ASCII file. When all parameters were entered correctly, the imported sounding should appear in the "Project Explorer". If there are any problems, you can always check the content of the Activity View's "Processing" tab.

Video Tutorial

The following YouTube video tutorial shows how to import a sounding from an ASCII text file. Click below to play the video. When you like the video, please click the like button and subscribe so you will receive an update when new video tutorials on Hydromagic are uploaded.

In Hydromagic, processing sounding data can be imported from ASCII text files.