Data Visualization in C#

Hey guys,

I'm currently using MATLAB to process large sets of binary data and it's too slow. I've been learning C# in my spare time for the past several months and can't seem to make the major connection between reading the binary file and decoding the data in the file with a data dictionary.

My binary files have sync markers in them every 200 words, so I can read in the file and have a ?? X 200 array. The way the data is decoded is with a dictionary. The dictionary has the locations in the array where the data is and also has the LSB. For instance, the dictionary has some column names like: NAME, WORD_LOC, GAIN, etc. So if I had a row of data in the dictionary that said Name: POWER, WORD_LOC: 40, GAIN: 7.5, I'd need a way to get that information from the dictionary, search through the binary file for the 40th (out of 200) word of however many rows, and apply the gain.

I know for certain that C# is the language I ought to be using because I've been through the Framework Class Library and am kind of embarrassed that I'm not taking advantage of all these cool tools.

Can anyone give me a hint or point me towards some code examples that involve:

1. Reading binary data (btw what's fastest when dealing with binary files of unknown size, streamreader or binaryreader? - and I feel like the List collection could be of some use here),

2. JOINING the data (System.LINQ?) with a csv dictionary? I can manually enter some data into a table for now and use sqlmetal.exe to create the .mdf for the data connection, but how can I even call certain parameters from the table from inside the form?

3. Getting this data to the chart control for plotting. I need to be able to select from a list of NAMES and plot the result.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------