Inlinino is an open-source software data logger for oceanographers. It primarily records measurements from optical instruments deployed on research vessels during month long campaigns. It provides real-time visualization, which helps users troubleshoot instruments in the field and ensure collection of quality data. Inlinino can interface with either analog, serial, USB, or UDP instruments. The data received is logged in a timestamped raw format (as communicated by the instrument) or in a comma separated file (csv) for easy importation in data analysis software. Typically, a new log file is created every hour for simplicity of post-processing and easy backups. Instruments supported are: Sea-Bird Scientific ACS, Sequoia HyperBB, Sequoia LISST100x, SeaBird TSG (SBE-45 + SBE-38), Biospherical Instruments Inc. PAR, Sea-Bird Scientific ECO sensors (e.g. ECO-BB3, ECO-FLBBCD, ECO-BB9), Satlantic (now SBS) instruments (e.g. HyperOCR, HyperPro, HyperSAS, HyperNAV, Suna), NMEA over serial or UDP, analog sensors via data acquisition systems (Ontrak ADU100, DataQ DI-1100, and DI-2108), and peripheral control (e.g. pump, 3-way valves) via relay interface (Ontrak ADU100, ADU200, and ADU208). Other serial instruments with ascii output can be configured with the user interface. Instruments with non-trivial output can be added by writing a dedicated python module.
The documentation of the project is available at http://inlinino.readthedocs.io.
Cite as: Haentjens, N. and Boss, E., 2020. Inlinino: A Modular Software Data Logger for Oceanography. DIY Oceanography. DOI: 10.5670/oceanog.2020.112
Inlinino was bundled into a Windows executable and a macOS application. Both are available for download with a quick start guide in the documentation. Otherwise, Inlinino can be installed from source using the setup.py file available on this repository, following the instructions below.
Download Inlinino code.
wget https://github.com/OceanOptics/Inlinino/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
cd Inlinino-master
To install Inlinino (tested with python 3.8 only, should work with newer python versions):
pip install -r requirements.txt
On Ubuntu, PyQt5 and PyQt5.QtMultimedia should also be installed with apt:
sudo apt install python3-pyqt5
sudo apt install python3-pyqt5.qtmultimedia
To use Ontrak ADU on Windows additional dll and python modules are needed. Note that in resources/ontrack the path to the dll need to be edited with os.path.join(PATH_TO_RESOURCES, 'ontrak', 'AduHid').
wget https://www.ontrak.net/images/adu_python_dll.zip
unzip adu_python_dll.zip
cp adu_python_dll/ontrak inlinino/ressources
wget https://www.ontrak.net/images/adu_python_libusb.zip
unzip adu_python_libusb.zip
cp adu_python_libusb/libusb/* inlinino/ressources/libusb
To use HydroScat, the Python aquasense package is required. See README.md in the aquasense repository for installation after cloning https://bitbucket.csiro.au/scm/aqrs/aquasense.git. See also the CSIRO aquasense record.
Inlinino can then be started from the folder containing inlinino's source code with.
python -m inlinino
The application is written in Python 3, on top of pySerial, numpy, and PyQt5. The current version works with a "classic" Graphical User Interface. A web interface started to be implemented and can be found in the branch tb-app of this repository. A command line interface used to be available but is no longer supported (latest at v1.x).
The code is organized in:
docs: User Documentation (ReadTheDocs)inlinino: Inlinino source codeinstruments/: Instrument interfaces, more instrument types can be added there.ressources/: User Interface Layout and Logo.*.py: Core code of Inlinino.inlinino_cfg.json: Applications parameters are saved in this file (ReadTheDocs)
make.py: Bundles Inlinino application into a .app or .exe depending on platform, requires pyInstaller.setup.py: Python environment setup file.
When Inlinino is started an engineering log file is created in logs/inlinino_<YYYYMMDD>_<hhmmss>.log and keep track of most tasks executed (e.g. user interaction, creation of data log files, warnings, and potential errors).
On Ubuntu, one my night need to update the rights to the serial port to let Inlinino read and write from/to them. For example to give right to the serial port /dev/ttyACM0:
sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyACM0
For any questions or issues regarding Inlinino please contact me.