RMOB DAT Visualizer

Introduction

This is a small project for visualizing radio meteor detection data from two file formats:

• SpectrumLab-type RMOB-YYYYMM.dat files
• RmobTxt format *MMYYYY rmob.txt files (radio meteor detector output)

Note: This project is still in progress!

Example RMOB-202408.dat file:

2024080100 , 00 , 84
2024080101 , 01 , 81
2024080102 , 02 , 80

The CSV format uses commas (,) as delimiters:

• The first column contains the date and hour in the format YYYYMMDDHH (UTC).
• The second column shows the hour.
• The third column contains the meteor count for the given hour.
  Line endings must be CRLF (\r\n).

Example Szeged_022024rmob.txt file:

feb| 00h| 01h| 02h| 03h| 04h| 05h| 06h| 07h| 08h| 09h| 10h| 11h| 12h| 13h| 14h| 15h| 16h| 17h| 18h| 19h| 20h| 21h| 22h| 23h|
 01| 145| 133| 142| 119|  83|  89|  99|  97|  76|  66|  73|  91|  67|  70|  52|  67|  49|  48|  72|  89| 112|  95| 117| 158|
 02| 147| 146| 133| 106|  86|  78|  66|  87| ???| ???| ???| ???| ???| ???| ???| ???|   9|   9|  12|  37|  40|  57|  74|   0|

The RmobTxt format is a pipe-delimited table:

• First column contains the day of the month (01-31).
• First row contains hour labels (00h-23h).
• Data cells contain meteor counts for each day and hour.
• Missing data is marked as ??? and is automatically skipped.
• Filename format: [Location_]MMYYYY rmob.txt (e.g., Szeged_022024rmob.txt for February 2024)
  • Month and year are extracted from the filename to set the correct date for the data.

Prerequisities

• Microsoft Windows (tested on 10)
• .NET 6 Runtime
  (Will be upgraded to .NET 8 or 10 in the future)

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Usage

1. Click the "Open" button to select one or more .dat files.
   (The order of the files doesn’t matter – the app will sort them automatically.)

2. Choose the type of visualization:

   • RMOB visualization: Similar to rmob.org, but with:
     • Multiple scale options
     • Daily maximum view
     • Multi-month support
       
   • Meteor shower view: Displays hourly meteor counts for a short time range (e.g., a few days).
     

3. Press the "Generate" button!

4. A new window will appear showing the result, or an info dialog in case of errors.
   

   You can:

   • Save the image
   • Copy to clipboard and paste into any image editor

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Options

RMOB Visualization

• Months per row – When multiple files are selected, choose how many months to display per row.
• Scale – Choose the preferred color scale.
• Show daily maximums – Display a bar chart underneath the main visualization.

Meteor Shower

• Start date – The beginning of the diagram (00:00).
• End date – The end of the diagram (23:59).
• Show grid – Display a grid overlay on the bar chart.

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Other Notes

• Any issues or feature suggestions are welcome!
• The code is actively being improved – stay tuned.
• Sample files are available in the Examples folder.
• Check out the Szeged Observatory livestream:
  https://www.youtube.com/@szegedicsillagvizsgalo5848/live