converting .imu files to excel or csv using .net

[NerfHerder]

Hello,

Not sure if this is the best place for this question, but here goes. Can you convert .imu files to something like csv or xls using .NET? I've never used LabView, so that wouldn't be an option for me, and like most demands I get, it's needed for yesterday so i don't really have time to learn it. Long story short, we have an old LabView application which generates .imu files (some kind of report, or results files from what i gather), which are normally converted to xls by our Labview application, which seem to need to have MS-Office installed on the machine to work. It only works with older version of office though, and asking the client to install office 2003 or 2007 on their machine isn't really an option. I just want to make a small tool that would take those files, and convert them to something else, like xls or csv through possibly an open-source library or the like. I just need to be able to make sense of the .imu file to begin with, i'm pretty sure i could manage after that. Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

English isn't my first language, so i'm hoping what i just wrote make sense. Let me know if any more details are needed.

Thanks!

[jcarmody]

What's imu?  Could you post an example file?

[NerfHerder]

Haha, ya, i got that star wars commander thing searching for what those files are supposed to be also, but i can assure you it has nothing to do with that. From what i gather it stands for "Inertial measument unit" or something like that. Here are some files i was asked to convert. Also, if it can be any help, if i try to open them using Labview, it tells me i need to install SignalExpress, so i'm guessing it might be a file specific to that program. 

[NerfHerder]

Here are some screenshots of how we get those files. They're refered to as "data aquisition file" in our application. From what I understand, any tests we run will generate one of those file in a folder named after the test that ran. You can also reopen that file with our software, and here what one of those looks like: (i tried to take more detailed screenshot, but some controls or menus don't show up, so bear with me pls)

Some other files are also generated, (.iml and imt) but the .imu seem to be where the important stuff is.

Then, in the file menu, we have an "export" function, where you go and chose which .imu file you want to export, and tada... excel file is generated. Here's what the converted file looks like. (This is from another .imu, not the one from the screenshot shown above).

I've also uploaded the excel file, if anybody want to look at it, because there's more than one sheet. So what I wanna do, is get that kind of excel file from the .imu files I uploaded on my last post. Ideally without using Labview (or by using the .net version of the ni-daq driver, or something like that. I have no idea what i'm doing when it comes to labview, which must be pretty apparent by now. 😛 )

Anymore details i can give to help, just let me know.

[ben64]

By looking at the imu file with Notepad we can see that it is a mix of ASCII and binary. You can only convert it if you know how it was structured and encoded. Without this knowledge it's practically impossible. If the application was developped by your company you should have the development code.

Ben64

[NerfHerder]

I'm pretty sure we do, but we lost our Labview programmer recently, and I was asked if there's anything i can do to help. I'm more at ease with databases applications and websites programming and such, but I guess my boss thought "you're a programmer, fix it!" I don't think he gets the difference between dataflow programming and procedural programming...  I know there's a .NET driver available, so I thought I could maybe use that to do whatever the application is doing, but again, maybe not. Anyway, worst case scenario, I'll just go and tell him we better hire a new labview person soon. 😉

If anybody else has a possible solution, i'm still interested.

Thanks!

[RTSLVU]

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@NerfHerder wrote:

I'm pretty sure we do, but we lost our Labview programmer recently, and I was asked if there's anything i can do to help. I'm more at ease with databases applications and websites programming and such, but I guess my boss thought "you're a programmer, fix it!" I don't think he gets the difference between dataflow programming and procedural programming...  I know there's a .NET driver available, so I thought I could maybe use that to do whatever the application is doing, but again, maybe not. Anyway, worst case scenario, I'll just go and tell him we better hire a new labview person soon. 😉

If anybody else has a possible solution, i'm still interested.

Thanks!

---

Well you could post the source code, maybe someone here can figure out what the file format is and tell you how to convert it.

[NerfHerder]

Ok... I've found the source code of the application, in which I have a folder named "export", with a bunch of .vi files with names like "Call Export files.vi, Excel_OpenWorkbook.vi, Excel_Write Array BKP.vi, etc..." So i guess i'm at the right place. Now, how would i go about posting the source code? Is there any written code anywhere? Labview seems quite graphical, do you want screenshots? The full vi files? Edit: I've added the vi files relating to the export. I'm not super enthusiastic about posting source code i don't own, but i'm guessing just the export part can't be that big of a deal, plus, that thing is getting so old... let me know if theres anything of value in there.

I'm getting warnings opening them in labview (i've installed the 2011 version, since it seems to be our most recent one), and the files dates back to 2006... could that be an issue?

Sorry for sounding so ignorant... 😞

[Bob_Schor]

Yes.  If you open old LabVIEW files with a new version of LabVIEW and then save the files, they will change!  Absolutely the safest thing for you to do is to gather the old LabVIEW files into a Folder, compress the folder to a Zip file, then post the Zip file here.  This has several advantages:

• If we screw up the file(s), you've lost nothing.
• There's a lot of experience here -- maybe one of us can figure something out.
• If LabVIEW code is generating these files, we're possibly in a better position to figure out what is going on than you (you did say you were primarily a Database person, right?  With little LabVIEW experience?  Well, there are a few Experts here ...

Bob Schor

[NerfHerder]

I didn't save anything! No worries. I've edited my previous post to include the export vi's, but thinking about it, i'm guessing the .imu file is already generated at this point, so i'm still looking if i can find anything else, without having to post the whole application source code. And yes, i know nothing about Labview, so I really appreciate any help you guys can give.