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Guillaume Galibert edited this page Jun 26, 2015 · 1 revision

FSI NXIC CTD Binary file format (.ctd)

FSI do not seem to provide information on the format of the binary files output by the NXIC CTD sensor. This page details my attempts to reverse engineer the format. All multi-byte values are stored in little endian format.

Header

All .ctd files begin with a header section of 220 bytes.

Offset Length Description Type Note
0 2 File ID (9b00)? ?
2 2 Instrument serial number uint16
17 1 Start second uint8
18 1 Start minute uint8
19 1 start hour uint8 24 hour
20 1 Start day uint8
21 1 start month uint8
22 1 Start year uint8 add 2000
28 1 Interval hour uint8
29 1 Interval minute uint8
30 1 Interval second uint8
31 1 Record hour uint8
32 1 Record minute uint8
33 1 Record second uint8
155 7 Calibration date char ddMMMYY
199 1 Sample length uint8 Length of sample packets in bytes

Samples

The header is followed by sample data. The structure of a sample packet varies depending on auxillary sensor configuration, but all sample packets have at least the following fields:

Offset Length Description Type Note
0 4 Time uint32 Unix time
4 1 Second fraction uint8
5 4 Conductivity float mmho/cm
9 4 Temperature float Degrees Celsius
13 4 Pressure float dbar
17 4 Salinity float PSU
21 4 Sound velocity float m/s
25 4 Battery voltage float V
29 2 Turbidity uint16 Divide by 1310.7133018216962 to convert into FTU
31 2 Flourescence uint16 Divide by 655.387164 to convert into ug/L
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