Introduction
SCS offers multiple styles of data logging. The traditional style is continuous ACQ logging, which records complete raw sensor data into multiple types of outputs (RAW files, NetCDF files, database tables, etc). Each sensor is logged to its own file, and in post processing it is necessary to correlate the contents of any two sensor log files using timestamps.
The second style is Event Logging, which provides a means of collecting data sets that are completely separate from the raw data collected by the system. In a typical situation, you may only be interested in sensor data collected only during specific times within the cruise. Typically these times represent specific events that may take place during the cruise, such as a CTD cast, a trawl tow, a balloon launch, a buoy deployment, etc. Even Logging enables each and every scientist or end-user to collect a customized set of data during a cruise. At the end of the cruise, the user will walk away with exactly the data he/she desires, without the need to sort through the entire raw data set.
Event Logging has two main interfaces on the SCS site. Similar to other widgets you must first use the Event Template Editor to define an event. Once you have a template it can be executed via the Event Management page. On the back-end all the work is being done by a windows service (SCS Event Logger). The Logger in turn makes use of the website's SignalR data hub to access any sensor data it may need.
In this documentation, event refers to a particular operation on the ship, such as a fish trawl or a CTD cast. SCS Event Logging allows the user to define specific actions within an event, such as "CTD in water", "Net deployed." For any action you can choose to record the current value of sensor data, manually entered data, or clock time. When the event is run, each action in the event is initiated by the user by clicking on buttons in the Logger GUI or via user defined automated triggers.
Legacy Event Logger
Events in SCS v5.1.0 were designed to try to incorporate the ideas and terminologies used in the older versions of SCS in order to ease your transition and reduce the required learning curve. Many features you may be used to such as Meta Items and Outputs have been reproduced in v5.1.0 though they may be tweaked in a number of ways. Many features of OEL have been brought into the fold as well as many requests from users like you. However, the new framework does support exporting the results of an event into the same legacy file setup (HDR, ELGs, etc) to ensure backwards compatibility with existing applications.
See Also: Event Logging SCS v4 to v5
