Manual

June 2004 Isis® Sonar User's Manual, Volume 2 1
Appendix A Q-MIPS File Format
Isis and VISTA support a number of file formats: Q-MIPS, BAC, GAC, and XTF.
Each has distinct advantages. This appendix explains the structure and use of
the Q-MIPS format.
A.1 General Description
The Q-MIPS file format is perhaps the mostly widely known and used file format
for VIS_TA and other applications capable of displaying sidescan data imagery.
Q-MIPS-style data files are stored in binary format. Each data file consists of a
1024-byte file header followed by ping records. Each ping record consists of a
number of imagery channels followed by a 256-byte footer record.
The following format description is current for Q-MIPS version 6.69,
Q-MIPS/DSP version 1.16 and Isis . Both Isis and TrakMap use this same data
format. Q-MIPS and Q-MIPS/DSP are limited to four sonar channels and eight
imagery channels at 1024 pixels per channel (four raw, four corrected).
Table A-5 on page 9 and Table A-6 on page 16 describe each field in the header
and footer structures respectively. For specific C-language header and footer
structures used by Q-MIPS (and Q-MIPS/DSP) and Isis, refer to
UPDATES.DOC
and
QMIPSFMT.H respectively. These files are included with every software
release.
A.2 Header and Footer Data
For Q-MIPS systems, you can set some of the values in the header and footer in
the configurable files called
QMIPS.DAT and SONAR.DAT. Refer to Appendix A
of the Q-MIPS User’s Manual for descriptions of these files. Isis relies on setup
configurations saved in the binary ISIS.CFG file for many of these values. You
can change many of the startup defaults loaded from the QMIPS.DAT,
SONARS.DAT and ISIS.CFG files without quitting and re-starting the Q-MIPS or
Isis program. Generally, display-related parameters can be changed on-the-fly
during collection. The current destination file must be closed before changing
most acquisition- and storage-related parameters from the menus.
Appendix A: Q-MIPS File Format