Comparison of ATFX with MDF

[Niccolo-2]

Hello I am newbie and  have to compare these two data formats (ATFX vs. MDF) and find  similarities.Therefore I am looking for some good learning materials and examples. I found some .pdf files on the ASAM page but they are not enough for it.HELP PLEASE...  Thanks!

[Christian-P]

Hi,

You can install these DataPlugins and first load the data files:

MDF3 DataPlugin

MDF4 DataPlugin

ATFX DataPlugin

After importing files with these DataPlugins they do all have TDM file structure in data portal.

What content do you want to compare exactly? Meta data (properties) or channel values?

Can you provide some more information about that?

Regards

[Niccolo-2]

Hallo Christian

Danke für deine Antwort. Ich mach vergleich von Datenstrukturen , Datentypen , "Conversions" und Einheiten erst. Das alles mach ich Allgemein zuerst.  Muss ich auch gestehen ,dass ich Anfänger bin und habe seit 2 Wochen angefangen die Datenformaten kennenzulernen. Ich lese erst die ASAM Standards und habe einigermaßen schon verstanden wie die beide strukturiert sind. Die Ähnlichkeiten zu finden ist bisschen schwer. Ich habe noch nicht NI DIAdem angeschaut. (Das mach ich heute.)

Grüße Niccolo

[Christian-P]

Hi,

Can you provide some example files?

Makes it easier to see what exactly you need to compare.

In DIAdem it makes sense to compare files after loading them to the data portal.

After that they do all have TDM structure and you can use DIAdem commands / scripts to implement your comparison.

[AndreasH_Ha]

Hi,

I think it will be hard to learn the differences by reading the documentation. Even if you list the differences in detail, the question which will remain, is which of those differences are relevant for your use case. MDF4 is more like the NI TDM format: Ether you can read it or not (typically) When you can read it, you know how to handle the data. ATFX can be a lot of different things, more like XML. You need to know which data model was used when creating the file to read it. And to make sense of the data in the file, you need to interpret the data in the file accordingly. DIAdem can do this but you typically have to apply some custom logic.

I think we could help you better, if you would be able what kind of use case you want to use one or the other format

Andreas

[Niccolo-2]

Hello Andreas

Thank you for your Answer.

I think, I have no choice and I have to read first the Specifications. My use case is, that I want to know if I can treat the ATFX file format as MDF and vice versa.  Therefore I am looking for similarities of both formats.

Niccolo

[Niccolo-2]

Hello Christian

I have no example files, that I do the comparison only in general first. I will try DIAdem plug-ins  as long as I find some time for it. 🙂 Thanks!

Niccolo

[StefanR · Accepted solution]

Hi Niccolo,

the short answer to your question is:

You can store everything contained in a MDF file (except some very minor MDF specific non-ODS compatible extensions) into an ATFX file.

Because an ATFX file can have an arbitrary data model and MDF has a fixed one you cannot store everything of an ATFX file into a MDF file.