Concatenate Index Files

  • Command: ConcatenateIndexFiles
  • Config file: SpectrogramFalseColourConfig.yml
  • Config file2: IndexPropertiesConfig.yml

This command also produces false-colour spectrograms. However instead of taking the spectral indices from a single audio file, it takes the total output from multiple runs of the audio2csv command, and concatenates them to produce one or more concatenated false-colour index spectrograms.

Typically, this command is used to produce a sequence of one or more 24-hour false-colour spectrograms, where the original recordings can be anything from 30 minutes to 24 hours duration. 24-hour false-colour spectrograms are much easier to interpret because sound-marks, such as the morning chorus, evening chorus, and insect tracks, are easier to identify. False-colour index spectrograms shorter than about 3 hours are difficult to interpret due to the lack of soundscape context.

There is also an option with this command to concatenate the false-colour spectrograms of every audio recording that can be found in a specified directory into one large data-set and image. Due to memory constraints however, one would not usually attempt to concatenate more than about 48 hours of recordings.

It is strongly recommended you only run this command on files from a single acoustic sensor deployment - don't mix recordings from different sites or deployments!

Usage

This section describes the command line arguments required to concatenate the output from multiple runs of the audio2csv command on shorter duration audio recordings, that is less than 24-hours. Typically, the output is a sequence of one or more 24-hour FC spectrograms.

To run the command, type:

$ AnalysisPrograms.exe concatenateIndexfiles [options]

Options

Some of the option are obligatory (the program will return fatal error if they are not found on the command line) and some are optional.

  • -inputdatadirectories: An array of one or more directories where the original csv files are located. The required files can be in subdirectories to any depth
  • -inputdatadirectory: A single directory where all the original csv files are located. This option exists (in addition to the above) as a hack to get around commas in paths conflicting with PowerArgs' array parsing feature.
  • -outputdirectory: The directory where the all the output is to go.
    • If it does not exist it will be created. If it exists contents will be overwritten.
  • -directoryfilter: Used as a pattern matcher to collect the required data CSV files, which are assumed to be in a matching directory or subdirectory. We often place the output in directories with same name as the recording file (including the extension).
    • Typically the recording siteName is used as the filter pattern to select directories. It can also be used for naming the output files
  • -fileStemName: User defined file stem name for the output files.
  • -startdate: A date at which concatenation is to begin. If null, then start with earliest available file. Can parse an ISO8601 date.
  • -enddate: A date at which concatenation ends. If null, then will be set equal to today's date available file. Can parse an ISO8601 date.
  • -timeSpanOffsetHint: A TimeSpan offset hint required if file names do not contain time zone offset info. NO DEFAULT IS SET.
  • -indexpropertiesconfig: User specified file as for the colourSpectrogram command.
  • -falsecolourspectrogramconfig: Config file for drawing the false colour spectrograms.
  • -concatenateeverythingyoucanlayyourhandson: Set true only when concatenating more than 24-hours of data into one image

Other notes

  • StartDate: A .Net DateTimeOffset object, start dateTime must be in format readable into a DateTimeOffset object, e.g. 2015-10-25T00:00:00+10:00

  • EndDate: A .Net DateTimeOffset object, end dateTime must be in format readable into a DateTimeOffset object 2015-10-25T00:00:00+10:00

  • TimeSpanOffsetHint (timespan): should be set to +1000 hours for Queensland. = TimeSpan.FromHours(10), e.g. 10:00:00