File Naming and Automatic Folder Organization for Recordings in ALTRON

After a few days of recording on a production line, the first thing that matters is not image quality; it is finding the right file. Which file belonged to which shift? Which recording was made with which settings? File naming and automatic folder organization in ALTRON exist so that the answers to these questions can later be read from the file's own name and path.

Where do the files go?

You set the main path in the Path field of each saving node. If you do not give a path, files are saved to the user's Desktop.

ALTRON does not dump files directly into that folder. For each recording, it creates a folder named after the output type under the main path. Inside that, it creates another folder named with the date and time the recording started:

Path/TIFF/YYYY-MM-DD_HH-mm/

The output-type folder name differs for each saver, such as BMP, JPEG, TIFF, RAW or SEPRAW. As a result, outputs of different formats don't get mixed up, and each recording has its own folder.

Alongside the files of each recording, a metadata file with the json extension is also written. It records the camera specifications, the settings sent to the camera and the graph of that recording. So even months later, you know what settings each recording was made with.

Default file names

If you don't change any setting, each file name has this form:

IMG_2026_09_22_10_15_03_310_00000001.tiff

That is, first the IMG prefix, then the date and time down to the millisecond, and finally an eight-digit number. Because the date comes before the number, sorting the files alphabetically is the same as sorting them by time.

Prefix and File Name, the simplest label

In the BMP, JPEG, TIFF and separated raw data savers, the Prefix field is in the node panel. Savers that write the entire recording into a single file, namely Raw Data Saving and the video nodes, have a File Name field instead. The job name, camera name or production batch number are good choices for this field.

Set up the name format yourself

From the Tools › Record › Set Common Params menu, open the File naming section. It has these settings:

• Prefix: whether there is a prefix and what its text is. If you leave the text empty, each node's own Prefix or File Name is used.
• Number digits: The number of digits in the file number, from 5 to 16.
• Date, Hour, Minute, Second and Millisecond: you turn each time component on or off separately.
• Date/time format: whether the time is written compactly or with separators.
• Separator: the character between parts of the name: underscore, hyphen, dot, ~, +, or no separator.
• Order: whether the number comes first or the date and time.

With the Same naming for every saver option, all savers get a single naming format. If you uncheck it, you set a separate format for each type of saver. The Preview section also shows what the name of each saver's first file will be.

Tips from our own experience

• Keep the “date and time first” order so that files from several days of recording line up chronologically in whatever folder they are collected.
• If the frame rate is high, don't turn off Millisecond. That way, files created within the same second can also be told apart by their names.
• If you expect a very large number of files, choose more digits from the start so the numbers stay the same length.
• Avoid spaces and unusual characters in Prefix. If the files go on to another program or script, a simple name causes less trouble.

A common mistake

Many people change the Prefix or naming format in the middle of a recording and expect it to take effect immediately. But each node reads these settings at the moment of Start. So press Stop first, then change the setting and press Start again.

A short general reference on file naming: Wikipedia (English).

We have introduced the other saving features in ALTRON page. If you have questions about organizing files for your own system, let us know.