MDF Import Tool and Function

GUI tool and function to import signal data from MDF (Measure Data Format) files

Description

This tool and function imports data from MDF (.dat or .mdf) files to the MATLAB® workspace or MAT-file. Each signal comes in as a separate variable. Associated time vectors are also generated.

Calling 'mdfimport' without parameters brings up a interactive GUI. Calling 'mdfimport' with parameters reads the signals in directly.

Instructions: Unzip attached files and put on your path or in the current directory. Type mdfimport to run. Access help from the tools Help menu of the GUI for more information or by directly reading the two HTML files included.

Tested in releases from R13 to R2006A. Tested more with MDF files generated by ETAS INCA. Does work with some files VECTOR CANtech CANape.

• Acknowledgements: This submission has inspired the following:; MDF Import Tool and Function - with resampling/interpolation, XDA -> signal list
• MATLAB release: MATLAB 6.5 (R13)

[Brian Gebby]

Very worthwhile tool!

[Andrew Herman]

A great asset to our algorithm development and validation efforts!

[Douglas Basberg]

Works seamlessly. Intuitive interface.
Help file is clear, but could use some grammer and typo checking. A big well done. This package will save many people hours. Thank you.

[Sebastien LAURENT]

Very good job

[Xiao Zhang]

Very nice job. Save us a lot of time. Thank you.

[Liu Qiang]

Great!
After a month of analysis of the binary file, I find this tool just before I begin to write a similar tool.
Am I lucky or unlucky? :-P

[Gene DiValentin]

I've been using this tool for a couple of months and it's fast, easy, and intuative to use. Postprocessing INCA data has become much eaiser. Thank you.

[Timo Schmidt]

Great!
Good feeling to be not dependent on ETAS-MDA any more.

[Elmar Riesmeier]

Very useful tool - saves time and works just fine as function or via GUI.

[G D]

 Doesn't work with formula conversion type 9, hence could not use for data import

[jerome edwards]

 

[john coppola]

sweet

[Manohar Chenekala]

Sir,
Im using mdfimport to convert mdf files(CANAPE) to mat and m file. Im succeeding for some files. for some files Im unable to get M-file. Can you tell me what the limitations and compatibilities with MDF files(version,size etc). my id is [e-mail]

With regards,
Manohar.ch

[Mark Zurawski]

It works well on all of my older MDF's. However, some of the newer MDF's from the Vector CANcaseXL Log seem to have an issue.

Here is a detail of the error:

??? Reference to non-existent field 'CNBlock'.

Error in ==> mdfimport>mdfinfo at 1569
    pos=zeros(length(CGBlockTemp.CNBlock),1);

Error in ==> mdfimport>populate_GUI at 456
[MDFsummary, MDFInfo, counts, channelList]=mdfinfo(handles.fullFileName);

Error in ==> mdfimport>Load_MDF_File_Callback at 664
        handles=populate_GUI(handles); Populate GUI (list box)

Error in ==> gui_mainfcn at 75
        feval(varargin{:});

Error in ==> mdfimport at 124
    gui_mainfcn(gui_State, varargin{:});

??? Error using ==> mdfimport('Load_MDF_File_Callback',gcbo,[],guidata(gcbo))
Reference to non-existent field 'CNBlock'.

??? Error while evaluating uimenu Callback

[jerome M]

Doesn't work with my mdf from CANApe. And doesn't display well on Matlab for Linux

[Jedediah Frey]

There is a problem with some Canape created files. The 'longSignalName' is generated from the comment field on line 1274:
CNBlockTemp.longSignalName=TXBlockTemp.comment;

And when the signal names are used, the program only checks to see if longSignalName is not empty (Line 1578), a better method would be to use 'isvarname' to determine if the longSignalName is a valid Matlab variable name. Currently we have a few channels where the longSignalNames come back as gibberish.

This is my suggested fix:
Line 1578 to 1582:
        if isvarname(longSignalNames{signal}) % If no long name, use signal name
            useNames(signal)=longSignalNames(signal); % Use Long name
        else
            useNames(signal)=signalNames(signal);
        end

Line 1599 to 1603:
        if length(signalNames{signal})>length(longSignalNames{signal})||~isvarname(longSignalNames{signal}) % If signal name longer use it
            useNames(signal)=signalNames(signal);
        else
            useNames(signal)=longSignalNames(signal); % Use Long name
        end

[firstname lastname]

fantastic!

[KC YANG]

It works well with INCA data. Next interation must be import all files at the same time.

[Sunil Lengare]

Thank you Great Material

[Sven P.]

 

[Andreas .]

Thanks a lot!

[J. Wang]

excellent tool!

[Ingmar Brandt]

Hello!

I've got some problems with the tool. Some signals in my CANape generated mdf-files (MDF - Version 3.1) are importable, some others aren't. The error message is the following one:

??? Error using ==> mdfimport>datatypeformat at 1944
Unsupported number of bits for unsigned int

Error in ==> mdfimport>mdfread at 1683
    datatype=datatypeformat(signalDataType,numberOfBits); %Get signal
    data type (e.g. 'int8')

Error in ==> mdfimport>mdfload at 1097
            [data
            signalNames]=mdfread(MDFInfo,dataBlock,selectedChannels);
            % Load specified signals

Error in ==> mdfimport>importdatawithoptions at 2250
                mdfload(options.MDFInfo,dataBlock,channelIndices,options.blockDesignation,ws,options.additionalText);
                
Error in ==> mdfimport>importdata_Callback at 345
    importdatawithoptions(options);

Error in ==> gui_mainfcn at 96
        feval(varargin{:});

Error in ==> mdfimport at 78
    gui_mainfcn(gui_State, varargin{:});
 
??? Error while evaluating uicontrol Callback

Does anybody have an idea if this problem is fixable? And if, how?

Thx Ingmar

[Andreas Patzer]

Hi all,

my name is Andreas Patzer and I'm the business development manager of CANape (Vector Informatik GmbH).

Thanks for the development of the import possibility of MDF-files into Matlab.
Please keep in mind that there is not ‘THE’ MDF file. In the early 90’ the MDF format was developed by Vector and Bosch and meanwhile there are some different MDF versions that are supported by CANape. Since years every development step was done in corporation with ETAS, to make sure that their and our customers have the same format.

One of the comments was like “ … not any more dependent of INCA MDA ..”. From my opinion ;-)) the very best tool to analyze MDF files is CANape or the analyzing subset of CANape, called CANgraph.

If you want to handle the MDF content in the Matlab workspace, please use the export possibilities in CANape. File | Converter options | Matlab Export Converter …

Please do not hesitate to contact me [e-mail]

Thanks
Andreas

[Adrian]

Nice tool :)

[Christian Schultes]

Great Tool. But it doesn't take older files with MDF-Version 2.14 - any help what can I do?

[AlainMil]

 

[Nikhil]