Science File Naming Conventions#

Data Product Science File Naming Conventions#

The following describes the filename conventions for IMAP data products. These conventions follow the recommendations provided by the SPDF.

The general filename convention is as follows:

imap_<instrument>_<data_level>_<descriptor>_<startdate>(-<repointing>)_<version>.<extension>

  • <instrument> is the IMAP instrument associated with the data product. Acceptable values include: codice, glows, hi, hit, idex, lo, mag, swapi, swe, and ultra

  • <datalevel> is the data level for the data product. Acceptable values depend on the instrument:

    • CoDICE: l0, l1a, l1b, l2, l3

    • GLOWS: l0, l1a, l1b, l2, l3a, l3b, l3c, l3d, l3e

    • HIT: l0, l1a, l1b, l2, l3

    • IDEX: l0, l1a, l1b, l2a, l2b, l3

    • IMAP-Hi: l0, l1a, l1b, l1c, l2, l3

    • IMAP-Lo: l0, l1a, l1b, l1c, l2

    • IMAP-Ultra: l0, l1a, l1b, l1c, l2, l3

    • MAG: l0, l1a, l1b, l1c, l1d, l2

    • SWAPI: l0, l1, l2, l3a, l3b

    • SWE: l0, l1a, l1b, l2, l3

  • <descriptor> stores information specific to the instrument and can store any information that is relevant. For example, it will typically contain the data product name, the sensor name, the timespan of the data, etc. This field can have any text or numbers as long as it doesn’t include underscores. The following is a list of expected descriptors for each instrument:

    • CoDICE: hskp, lo-counters-aggregated, lo-counters-singles, hi-counters-aggregated, hi-counters-singles, hi-priorities, lo-sw-priority, lo-nsw-priority, lo-sw-angular, lo-nsw-angular, lo-direct-events, hi-direct-events, lo-sw-species, lo-nsw-species, hi-omni, hi-sectored, lo-ialirt, hi-ialirt

    • GLOWS: hist, de, lightcurve, ionization-rate, survival-probabilities

    • HIT: TBD

    • IDEX: sci

    • IMAP-Hi: 45sensor-counts, 90sensor-counts, 45sensor-flux-map-3month (more TBD)

    • IMAP-Lo: TBD

    • IMAP-Ultra: 45sensor-counts, 90sensor-counts (more TBD)

    • MAG: norm-mago, burst-mago, norm-magi, burst-magi, norm-dsrf, burst-dsrf, norm-srf, burst-srf, norm-rtn, burst-rtn, norm-gse, burst-gse

    • SWAPI: sci-1min, hk

    • SWE: sci

  • <startdate> is the date of the ‘earliest’ data within the data product, in the format of YYYYMMDD.

  • <repointing> is an optional component that describes the repointing number, in the format of repoint<num>, where <num> is a 5 digit integer (e.g. repoint00001). If repointing is provided, that will be the primary way to identify the time range of the file, rather than the startdate.

  • <version> stores the version of the data product in the format is v<num>, where <num> is a 3 digit integer (e.g. v001). See the versioning conventions described in the data product versioning documentation for further details.

  • <extension> is the data extension. For l0 data products, the extension is pkts. For data levels l1 and higher, the extension is cdf.

Here are a few examples of acceptable filenames:

  • imap_idex_l0_raw_20261206_v001.pkts

    An IDEX L0 packet file containing data from the single day of 2026-12-06

  • imap_codice_l1a_lo-direct-events_20261206_v001.cdf

    A version 001 CoDICE-Lo L1a data product called direct-events containing data from 2026-12-06

  • imap_glows_l1a_counts_20261206-repoint00002_v001.cdf

    A version 001 GLOWS L1a data product for counts containing data from 2026-12-06 taken from repointing position 00002

  • imap_ultra_l2_45sensor-flux-map-3month_20261206_v001.cdf

    A version 001 ULTRA L2 flux map for the 45 sensor head for data taken over a 3 month span starting on 20261206