SIDmonitor software

1	SIDmonitor software

SID monitor is a utility for SID monitoring stations. It has been designed to automate as much as possible the data acquisition and storage tasks, so that the user can focus on data analysis.

SID Monitor Software Overview

SID monitor acquires digital data from a VLF receiver. Up to 16 channels can be monitored simultaneously.
Each channel signal level is periodically sampled and stored in a database. To that purpose, SID monitor embeds RRDTool data logging and graphing application. All RRDTool low-level database management and graph generation commands are automatically handled by SID monitor.

RRDTool also includes an aberrant behavior detection algorithm. This feature is currently experimental; the configuration is the algorithm being very delicate. Well configured, this algorithm can be used to warn the user of potential SID detection. Warning messages can be sent by email. It is important to recall that no automaitc event detection is possible. Careful visual analysis of the data is required before generating the report data file.

Monthly snapshots of the database are done.

SIDmonitor also include help for generating monthly reports which format is compliant with the NGDC (National Geophysical Data Center) as required by the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) for reducing data gathered by all VLF monitoring systems.

SIDmonitor automatically downloads the X-ray flux measurements from primary and secondary satellites. As a comparison means, those values can be plotted on the signal level graphs.

You can download here the documentation corresponding to the current release of SIDmonitor:

SID Monitor 1.3.1.0 Help Online version
SID Monitor 1.3.1.0 Help CHM format		(application/octet-stream, 972Kb, 24 Apr 2011)
SID Monitor 1.3.1.0 Help PDF format		(application/pdf, 3885Kb, 24 Apr 2011)

1	Installation

System Requirements

SID monitor is a Microsoft .NET application written in Visual C#.
It has been compiled on Microsoft Visual Studio Visual Studio C# 2005 Express Edition.
It consists of about 50,000 lines of code.

Hardware:

Basically, any PC can be used. Nominally, in data acquisition mode, CPU requirements are very low and memory usage is about 14 Megs.
Note: Specific functions such as 'Reapply New Algorithm Parameters' are very CPU and memory consuming. In this case, a 2GHz CPU and 512Mb to 1Gb of RAM are welcome, depending of the number of channels being used.

Connection to the analog-to-digital converter (MAX187) is done through a serial (COM) port.
The software has also been tested on a USB-to-serial port converter.

Software:

It should run on any Windows platform running Microsoft .NET 2.0. It has successfully been tested on Windows XP SP2 Home Edition, Windows XP SP2 Professional Edition and Windows Server 2003 SP1.

The following software are required:

Microsoft 2.0 Redistributable Package. You can download it here.
RRDTool. It is a data logging and graphing application. You can download it here.

Installation

SID monitor can be installed either manually by downloading binary archives, automatically through an installer or online. Online installation is more intrusive to the system but is easier and it offers automatic updates functionality.

Manual Installation:

Install RRDTool.
Install Framework 2.0.
Download SID monitor archive here below. Extract it and copy it to any folder.

Automatic Installation:

Install RRDTool.
Download SID monitor installer here below and execute it. Framework 2.0 will automatically be installed if necessary.

Online Installation:

Install RRDTool.
Execute SID monitor online installation here below. Framework 2.0 will automatically be installed if necessary.
Note: a bug makes the application crash when first launched after on online installation. You just need to restart SID Monitor from the "Start..." menu.

After the installation, it is necessary to configure the application (paths to RRDTool and database folder, channels setup...).
Refer to the help files for more information.

SID monitor uses the Windows registry only for the "Automatic start when user logs" option.
The registry key that is accessed is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\.
An SID_monitor entry is added if automatic start is enabled.

1	Download Current Release (1.3.1.0)

Binary Files

Online Installation

SID Monitor 1.3.1.0 Online Installation

Automatic Installation

SID Monitor 1.3.1.0 Microsoft Installer

(application/octet-stream, 1718Kb, 24 Apr 2011)

Manual Installation

SID Monitor 1.3.1.0 Binary File RAR Archive		(application/octet-stream, 1252Kb, 24 Apr 2011)
SID Monitor 1.3.1.0 Binary File ZIP Archive		(application/zip, 1320Kb, 24 Apr 2011)

Source Files

SID Monitor 1.3.1.0 Source File RAR Archive		(application/octet-stream, 1656Kb, 24 Apr 2011)
SID Monitor 1.3.1.0 Source File ZIP Archive		(application/zip, 1703Kb, 24 Apr 2011)

1	Previous Releases

Change Log

24-April-2011: v1.3.1

Bug fix: Fix error at startup when GOES update is disabled.
Bug fix: Improved handling of "TAB" circulation on channels panel.

17-April-2011: v1.3.0

Feature added: Addition of a "verbose" option to enable/disable printing of recurrent messages in the output log.
Bug fix: Fix error when channel name contained 0 (zero).
Bug fix: Improved handling of invalid settings and behaviour when program first runs.
Bug fix: Increased robustness after USB/serial port connection/disconnection.
Change: Increase timeout for ADC acquisition to account for USB ports and slow computers.
Change: Increase timeout for RRDTool process execution to 5 minutes.
Change: Change of thresholds for signal level icon indications in the channels tab.

22-February-2011: v1.2.0

Feature added: Change of GOES X-ray flux primary and secondary data sources.
Note: Non compatibility of the new "goes" rrdtool database with the v1.1.0 format.
Bug fix: Minor issues at startup in case of missing rrdtool executable fixed.
Change: Possibility to suppress GOES database periodic updates.

12-July-2006: v1.1.0

Feature added: Download of GOES-11 X-ray measurements in addition to GOES-10 and GOES-12.
Note: Non compatibility of the new "goes" rrdtool database with the v1.0.0 format.
Bug fix: Generate Report graph correctly updates when month change.
Bug fix: View Report graph display "no available image" when empty report selected.
Bug fix: View Report and Generate Report robustness improvement to null dockable panels.
Change: GOES data update automatically refreshes the graph.

05-June-2006: v1.0.0

Initial release.

Release 1.3.0.0

Help

SID Monitor 1.3.0.0 Help CHM format		(application/octet-stream, 972Kb, 31 Mar 2011)
SID Monitor 1.3.0.0 Help PDF format		(application/pdf, 3874Kb, 31 Mar 2011)